Brian Daboll, like Giants players, has some growing to do
Giants head coach Brian Daboll oversees the first day of training camp at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center in East Rutherford, N.J., on July 26. Credit: James Escher
Parris Cambell had just caught a deep pass down the right sideline earlier this week and was jogging back toward the rest of the offensive players when he got the nod. It was a quick twitch of the head, a summons from the coach who had something he wanted to say. They exchanged a few words and a quick smile before Campbell was sent off to rejoin practice.
A similar situation arose on Thursday, only this time it was rookie Jalin Hyatt who made the impressive grabs that warranted the invite. Again, it was just a subtle motion that signaled to the receiver that his presence was being requested. He got a grin and a quick pat on his shoulders before he was dismissed.
Brian Daboll is still connecting with his players, just as he did last year in his first season on the job, only these days it’s more subtle. Whereas a summer ago he might have sprinted to join the celebration with those players as they rose from the ground, chest-bumping them in jubilation, bro-hugging them all the way to the sideline, his demeanor is a little more distanced this time around.
He’s no longer as much one of the guys as he used to be. Now it’s as if he understands that he is The Guy. The Boss. And that there needs to be some space between himself and the players even if it goes against his every instinct.
“As a leader and presenter, you always have to evolve,” Daboll said. “I’ve spoken to a lot of business executives, head coaches, not just in football but in other sports. You’re always trying to improve. Self-improvement. It really is a new year. The focus has to be laser and you have to continue to just block everything out and improve each day.”
He can certainly still bring the passion. A few days ago, he got into a screaming match on the field with Dexter Lawrence, the two of them arguing about low hits at the line of scrimmage in a he-did-it-first fight. Daboll was protecting the knees of his offensive linemen, Lawrence was sticking up for himself. Eventually Daboll called Lawrence into the principal’s office with that now ubiquitous nod and they smoothed everything over.
But it’s pretty clear that this is a different Daboll. Perhaps it’s to signify that these are different Giants.
If anyone on the team had the right to run it back in 2023, after all, it would have been Daboll. He’s the only one who walked away from last season with a trophy, winning NFL Coach of the Year. That hardware sits in his office, perhaps the only item allowed in the building to remind anyone of the success the Giants had in 2022.
All the other accolades are locked away in the history closet. Everyone is starting fresh.
Daboll is, too.
Asked what he felt he needed to improve on, he half-jokingly pointed to his weight, his go-to self-deprecation.
Then he said he had pages of notes from those offseason conversations he had with others who lead teams or companies or programs.
“It’s leadership, it’s communication, it’s practice scheduling, it’s dealing with other people in the organization whether it is equipment staff, training staff,” Daboll said. “There are constant things that go on each day that maybe last year was the first time it ever happened to me. If it comes up this year, I can lean on some experience. But I’m kind of like the players. It’s all new right now, relative to training camp and trying to build a team. We’ve certainly got a long way to go.”
Coach of the Year is nice, but there are a lot of other trophies that would be much sweeter. And Daboll certainly knows that the award he won is no guarantee of future success.
Two of the six men who won it before him aren’t even head coaches in the NFL any longer. Only one of them besides Daboll, Baltimore’s John Harbaugh, led a playoff team in 2022. Among the last 15 Coaches of the Year, only Sean McVay of the Rams has won the award (2017) and gone on to win a Super Bowl with the same team in a season after that with the same organization (2021). The last to do that before him was Bill Belichick, the 2007 honoree for a perfect regular season.
So Daboll will keep nodding players over for swift pep talks and fist bumps. He’ll keep fiddling with the schedule and fine-tuning his messages. He’ll keep checking his notes.
He’ll keep trying to find the right recipe to make himself better. And the Giants, too.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
