CHICAGO — Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll can rewrite the Giants‘ history books again Sunday.
A loss to the Bears (5-3) at Soldier Field would be the Giants’ 11th consecutive road defeat dating back more than a calendar year to Oct. 2024.
That would set a new franchise record of futility for the Giants (2-7) in their 101st season of operation.
Right now, their current 10-game road losing streak is tied for the worst in franchise history with the 1978-79 Giants teams. They are 0-5 away from MetLife Stadium this season on top of losing their final five road games to close their inexplicably bad 2024 season.
Daboll was asked on Friday to identify the common thread between the Giants’ inability to close on the road. He chose not to.
“I’m focused on this week,” Daboll said. “So we’ve got to do a good job against this team, and that’s what’s most important.”
The Giants obviously don’t just lose on the road these days. They lose everywhere.
Just last season, Schoen and Daboll set a new franchise record by losing 10 consecutive games on their schedule from Oct. 13 through Dec. 22.
They have a 3-18 record in their last 21 games and a 5-21 record in their last 26 games.
Schoen and Daboll are 5-17-1 total against NFC East opponents, 2-14-0 against the Eagles and Cowboys and 20-39-1 in their four regular seasons.
They haven’t won a road game since Oct. 6, 2024, in Seattle, a 29-20 victory with Daniel Jones at quarterback.
Once the losing started, they blamed Jones for their failures, and ownership retained both the GM and coach after a 3-14 season.
One year later, Jones leads the NFL in passing yards. His 7-2 Indianapolis Colts are near the top of the NFC. And the Giants still don’t know which way is up and which is down.
All of that said, the Bears are beatable.
Although they have won five of their last six, two of those losses were by one point, both by a score of 25-24, over two bad teams in the Las Vegas Raiders and Washington Commanders. And a third was last week’s ridiculous and fortunate 47-42 win over the Cincinnati Bengals.
The Bears also give up 28.4 points per game, which is fourth-worst in the entire NFL.
On the other hand, Chicago’s defense leads the NFL in takeaways with 19. And the Bears as a team lead the league in turnover differential at plus-13.
The Giants are right behind the Bears in allowing 27.7 points per game, fifth in the NFL, and they are minus-three in turnover differential, having forced only six opponent turnovers all season.
Expect the Bears to run the ball a ton, and not just because there will likely be snow on the ground.
Chicago ranks second in rushing yards per game (144.4), partially because the Bears are good at it and partially because head coach and play caller Ben Johnson stays committed to the physical part of the game.
The Giants have been gashed badly in recent weeks by the Eagles and 49ers on the ground, and that prompted defensive coordinator Shane Bowen to make an interesting comment on Thursday:
It turns out the “scheme” changes that Daboll and players alluded to this week, in their effort to stop the bleeding with their run defense, are connected primarily to how the Giants’ defensive line plays at the line of scrimmage.
“The way you want to pressure potentially could change,” Bowen said. “It can go both ways. You can pressure behind some things and get caught, and they can burn you. But [there are] different things front-wise that we can do, maybe changing up the front, what techniques we’re playing, the different fronts — whether it’s four down, whether it’s five down.
“And then the technique we’re playing with at each position, it can kind of vary,” Bowen added. “All [of those are] things we looked at on Monday. We’re trying to give our guys the best chance to get out there and be successful, whatever that is — scheme, technique, whatever we’ve got to do.”
Here is the translation of what Bowen said: the Giants’ defensive line and front is not playing acceptable and effective run techniques. They’re trying to ‘stop the run on the way to the quarterback, a strategy Schoen and Daboll endorse.
And look at where it has gotten them: to a point where two-time Super Bowl-winning Giants legend Carl Banks had to call out Dexter Lawrence’s play last week.
Then defensive line coach Andre Patterson, who likes to blame the secondary for the defense’s run problems, took shots back at Banks.
Then Lawrence had one combined tackle and a tackle for a loss in a lopsided loss to the 49ers.
All of this has been overseen and enabled by Schoen and Daboll. It was their plan. It has backfired spectacularly. And now they’re scrambling to get a run stop, let alone a win.
Rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart remains the organization’s one obvious bright spot, even while the conversation around the team remains centered around the job securities of the GM and coach and about kicker Graham Gano’s injury.
Younghoe Koo is making his team debut potentially in the Windy City snow.
Dart cannot carry this whole operation, though. And when the Giants are losing, Daboll has been putting him in harm’s way late in games to try to improve the final scores.
It’s going to get worse if they don’t change how they operate.
There is no one coming to save them, though, including the schedule.
The Packers, Lions and Patriots await before the Giants’ extremely late bye week.
Will they get there with the same GM and coach running this show? Maybe.
Maybe not.
COLLINS, MUASAU TO INJURED RESERVE
The Giants activated Koo and wide receiver Ray-Ray McCloud from the practice squad for Sunday’s game, put receiver Beaux Collins and linebacker Darius Muasau on injured reserve and signed linebacker Zaire Barnes and outside linebacker Tomon Fox to the active roster.
