Giants' next QB will determine if John Mara made right decision in keeping Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen
New York Giants owner John Mara speaks with GM Joe Schoen during training camp at the Quest Diagnostics Center, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in East Rutherford. Credit: Corey Sipkin
Three of the four people who will attempt to perform this full-speed, tire-squealing, Steve McQueen-style U-turn for the Giants in the coming months spoke at the team’s facility on Monday.
First up was president and CEO John Mara followed by coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen, the latter two of whom were told earlier in the day that they will be sticking around.
The fourth?
He was out there somewhere in the football world, maybe getting ready for his NFL Combine or Pro Day showing later this spring, or possibly preparing for the playoffs or cleaning out his locker in some other NFL city.
He is the Giants’ as-yet-unidentified quarterback for the 2025 season. Ideally beyond that, too. And the whole organization will spend almost every moment from now until April making sure they get the right player for the role.
“That’s obviously the number one issue for us going into this offseason is to find our quarterback of the future,” Mara said. “Whether that be via the draft or acquiring a veteran will be up to them to decide . . . I think once you solve the quarterback issue, a lot of these other issues will improve.”
If they can’t solve it now, none of them have much of a future here.
Well, Mara certainly will.
But even he knows his reputation and credibility — already sullied in the minds of many fans from the past decade and a half of near-constant losing — are on the line with the offseason decisions that began with the retention of the current regime.
The next quarterback very quickly will determine how visionary or blind Mara was in retaining Schoen and Daboll.
“If I’m standing here a year from now and we’re having the same conversation, I’ll take the heat for it,” he said. “But we still believe that it’s the right decision going forward.”
It’s certainly no secret that the Giants need a quarterback. As in, they actually need a body to fill that position, let alone save the franchise. Besides Tommy DeVito, who will be an exclusive rights free agent in March, there isn’t anyone with the letters “QB” next to their name on the current 2025 roster.
That certainly is a different position for the Giants to be in. Monday was the first time this century that a season ended without a quarterback facing a media scrum to reflect or look ahead. DeVito and Drew Lock, who split the starts after Daniel Jones departed, simply crammed their belongings into plastic bags and walked out.
It wasn’t that they were being rude. They were just irrelevant.
Among other positions, though, quarterback was a big talking point.
“I’m excited about it,” linebacker Bobby Okereke said. “Ever since high school, your quarterback is the leader of the team. Whether you like it or not, the quarterback play affects everybody . . . The quarterback is generally the leader of the team, so I’m excited to see who that’ll be.”
Said guard Jon Runyan Jr.: “I don’t care if it’s a rookie or a veteran, we just need somebody who can come in here and help us win games. Offensively, we are built to do that. I think we can run the ball well and when we need it, we can hold up in pass protection. So somebody to come in and complement us and get us going and get some touchdowns and some wins would be valuable for us. Anybody. It doesn’t matter.”
The receivers clearly are curious as to who might be throwing passes to them in 2025.
Malik Nabers, coming off a record-setting rookie campaign, said he wants a quarterback who “can be a leader.”
Wan’Dale Robinson said he wants someone with “confidence” and who can play regularly. “It does wonders when you have just one guy back there,” he said.
Schoen said he thinks the Giants have a good group of receivers and even put tight end Theo Johnson and running back Tyrone Tracy Jr., both rookies, in that group.
“There are some young core pieces on offense that have different skill sets that can provide explosive plays,” he said. “If you get the right quarterback in there, you can utilize them.”
Of course, the Giants thought they had a quarterback when they signed Jones to a four-year, $160 million contract off a playoff run in the 2022 season. That whiff of a deal lasted a season and a half before Jones was benched and ultimately released in November.
Mara said no one is “absolved” for that miss.
“We made a decision at the end of the ’22 season, based on how Daniel had played, that we were going to sign him to that contract,” Mara said. “I approved that and we live with the results.”
Said Schoen of one of the biggest negatives of his tenure: “I wouldn’t change what we did.”
Nor does he regret not drafting a quarterback last year in a class that mostly has exceeded expectations.
Back then, the Giants had Jones and that dynamic to consider. Now Schoen has no choice. He has to add a quarterback . . . or perhaps, if they go the way the Vikings did last offseason, two quarterbacks.
Schoen insisted the Giants have the salary-cap space and draft capital to be able to do it. And he said they have the experience from the last few years of their “deep dives” into the draft classes to rely on with their upcoming assessments.
“We’ll look at any avenue we can to upgrade the position,” Schoen said. “It’s the most important position in football.”
Schoen and Daboll need to treat this upcoming decision with that kind of heft.
Even on this day when their jobs were saved, they need to approach it as if their careers depend on getting it right.
Mostly because they do.
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.
