PALM BEACH — No NFL head coach wants to get fired, look back and say, ‘I wish I had done things my way.’ So in do or die seasons, many coaches tend to lean into whatever they do best, whatever qualities got them the job in the first place.
That way, they give themselves the best chance to win and beat the odds. And if for some reason they fail, they at least have no regrets about taking outside advice that steered them away from their strength when the career stakes were highest.
That is the decision Brian Daboll faces now on whether to keep calling the Giants’ offensive plays, although the difference in his case is that Daboll’s boss, co-owner John Mara, already has suggested he should give it up.
So what will Daboll do? He’ll have to decide what makes him the best head coach for the 2025 Giants: being in the quarterback’s ear or stepping back into a CEO role. So far, sources say, he still has not taken any meaningful steps behind the scenes toward giving it up.
“I would say I didn’t do either well enough,” Daboll said at Tuesday morning’s NFC coaches breakfast. “But look, I have confidence in our staff, confidence in [offensive coordinator] Mike [Kafka], confidence in our offensive guys.
“What changes will be made, I want to go through the offseason, I want to go through OTAs,” he added. “I know last year you saw me with the microphone, holding the walkie talkie [at practices]. You’ll see Mike with the microphone at times this year. We’ll go through that whole process leading up to the preseason games and see where we’re at. But I’ve got to do both jobs better.”
It’s tricky, because Daboll’s work as Josh Allen’s Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator got him this job. But Daboll’s best Giants season was his first in 2022 when Kafka called the offensive plays for Daniel Jones.
The Giants were 15th in points scored in 2022. Then they slid to 30th in 2023 during a tumultuous season when Daboll yanked playmaking from Kafka multiple times, even giving it to quarterback coach Shea Tierney during the second half against the Cowboys.
Then when Daboll took over play calling full-time in 2024, the bottom fell out to 31st in scoring in the NFL.
Kafka received an optics-driven “assistant head coach” bump to try to conceal that he had been completely sidelined. And Jones got benched and released in the middle of a season when the Giants were supposed to put it all together.
It could be argued that 2024 was supposed to be Daboll’s last stand, and he already made his stand by taking over play calling and failed. So now it’s Mara’s turn to dictate how Daboll will proceed on his borrowed time.
But it appears there is still a discrepancy on exactly what Mara and Daboll talked about during that end-of-season meeting with Joe Schoen.
Mara said of Daboll on Jan. 6: “Maybe he makes some other changes in the way he operates going forward. I talked to him about, ‘Do you really believe that it’s in our best interest for you to continue calling the plays?’ I said, ‘I’m not going to demand that you do one thing or the other. But are you better off letting somebody else call the plays?’ That’s a discussion that we’re going to continue to have … That’s got to be his decision at the end of the day.”
Later that same day, Daboll clarified that wasn’t how the conversation went.
“I brought that up,” he said. “I brought that up to him in the meeting. … We won three games. So I’m going to consider every option to try to be better.”
Then on Tuesday here at the NFL owners meeting, Daboll interrupted a question to double down that the head coach had been the one who broached the subject, not Mara.
“He didn’t say that, though,” Daboll said at The Breakers Palm Beach. “I know what he talked about [to the media]. He didn’t say that. We had a conversation about a lot of different things, as we have throughout my time here, which has been very productive.
“Something I actually brought up in one of those meetings, just thinking about how we could get better and the possibility of maybe doing that,” he continued. “It wasn’t this is what we’re gonna do, this is how we’re gonna do it. It was more of a brainstorming, if you will, of things I want to try to get better at myself.”
Daboll’s consistent challenging of Mara’s characterization of this interaction is interesting and potentially risky. Then again, what does he have to lose?
It could be Daboll’s way of subtly pushing back on the sentiment of Mara’s Black Monday press conference: that he’s encouraged by the front office and draft process, but a lot needs to change with how the team performs on the field.
Mara voiced confidence and offered critiques on both Schoen and Daboll in that interview. His overwhelming tone, however, put more pressure on Daboll than it did on Schoen.
“There’s pressure to win always,” Daboll interrupted Tuesday. “It’s the NFL. There’s always pressure to win. There’s pressure to win when you have a 14-2 season; there’s pressure to win with a 3-14 season. I’ve been on both ends of them. There’s always pressure to win.”
Daboll has never been the head coach of a 14-2 team. He has been the coach of a 3-14 team. So those are misleading statistics.
But he can be excused for being defensive about this topic, because he’s a coach beset on all sides at the moment – a mess of his and Schoen’s own creation. And making the right decision might be Daboll’s best and only chance to save his job.
SCHOEN STILL TRYING FOR NO. 1?
Maybe it was just coffee, but Schoen and Titans GM Mike Borgonzi chatted 1-on-1 for a bit at a table together Tuesday at The Breakers Palm Beach in an outdoor courtyard. Borgonzi holds the No. 1 overall pick in this month’s NFL Draft, and Schoen holds pick No. 3. Most people in the league expect Tennessee to select Miami quarterback Cam Ward. The Giants were believed to be interested in trading up for Ward, though, until the consensus shifted to the Titans likely going QB. So it can’t hurt for Schoen to try one more time — if that’s what he was doing — as the draft nears. Or maybe it was just coffee.
