Brian Daboll, Joe Schoen on the same page in Giants' new game plan

Ask any boss in any endeavor to describe the job, and item No. 1 is — or should be — putting people in position to succeed.

So it will be for Brian Daboll, the Giants’ latest new head coach, from Daniel Jones to Saquon Barkley to the guy who mows the lawn on the practice fields.

But Daboll has bosses, too, and for fans of the beleaguered franchise, the best news to come out of his hiring on Friday and his formal introduction on Monday was this:

The Giants appear to have done their job in giving Daboll every opportunity to outlast his three predecessors and make it to the 2024 season and beyond.

How so?

Principally by joining him with a general manager, Joe Schoen, who seems to be a personnel soulmate, by allowing him to hire his own offensive coordinator and by enabling him to draw his own quarterback conclusion.

Please, no cards and letters saying this is a Joe Judge apologia, but for the record:

Daboll’s predecessor came aboard with an existing GM in Dave Gettleman, essentially was handed a coordinator in Jason Garrett and was in no position to get rid of Jones so soon after he was drafted No. 6 overall in 2019.

Oh, and Judge had a pandemic to deal with, too, the worst of which everyone hopes is over. (Fingers crossed.)

So Daboll begins the long march back to respectability not only with a clean slate but with a coherent system in place, one that comes with the implicit hope that he and Schoen will replicate what they did in Buffalo.

Schoen and Daboll were assistants there, but important ones, and each has a sense of what the other can do.

As much as Daboll aced his first news conference with likability and regular-guy vibes that graded off the charts, the thing that should encourage fans most was something Schoen said afterward.

Asked if Daboll has shown an interest in and/or aptitude for personnel decisions, Schoen said Daboll was part of the process that led to drafting star quarterback Josh Allen.

The GM also said that when the two were with the Dolphins, Daboll’s specifications led to the drafting of tight end Charles Clay in the sixth round. Clay played nine NFL seasons and totaled 357 catches for 3,868 yards and 24 touchdowns.

In 2020, Daboll laid out what he needed in a receiver, which led to the Bills taking Gabriel Davis in the fourth round. You might recall Davis from Buffalo’s recent playoff loss to Kansas City. He had 201 receiving yards and four touchdowns.

Daboll grew up a Bills fan — on Monday the 46-year-old recalled the pain of losing Super Bowl XXV to the Giants — and rose to head- coaching consideration as their offensive coordinator.

Now it is time for Giants fans to embrace him as one of their own. On Monday, he came across as a plain-speaking, pragmatic grown-up who speaks like a normal person rather than a coach from central casting.

None of that will matter if the Giants do not win, of course. Ben McAdoo and Judge looked like keepers after their first seasons. So fans know enough by now to watch or listen to these introductory news conferences more for entertainment value than true insight.

But as January turns to February, and with snow covering the practice fields at the Giants’ training facility, there was a warm, familial glow in East Rutherford, and not just from Daboll’s own family, which includes his six children.

Team president John Mara noted in several ways and on several occasions how attractive the Schoen-Daboll symbiosis was in the hiring process, something he said "tipped the scales" in Daboll’s favor.

This was three weeks or so after saying the GM/coach hirings would involve "no package deals."

But as Mara spoke, what echoed was something he said last week about Jones — that the Giants have "done everything possible to screw this kid up since he’s been here" by changing the circumstances around him.

Some of that can be said of Judge’s term with the Giants, too. Now there is a new guy in charge — the fifth head coach in the past eight seasons. This time the Giants are doing everything possible not to screw it up.

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.