Brian Daboll thrilled to address Giants as coach for first time
Giants head coach Brian Daboll, speaks to media at Quest Diagnostics Training Center in East Rutherford, N.J. on Jan. 31. Credit: Noah K. Murray
Brian Daboll had been waiting about 20 years for this day.
“Twenty-five,” he quickly corrected on the timeline that brought him to Monday and his first day as an NFL head coach in front of his own team. The Giants’ voluntary offseason program began on Monday and so too did the Daboll Era for the franchise.
“It was exciting for me,” he said of the opportunity to address the players and coaches together in an official meeting.
There will be plenty more of those.
“This is the first day where we're all back in the building and can get to know one another,” Daboll said. “I mean, there's a lot of things that we have to install in terms of schematics. But we also have to talk about expectations and standards and get to know one another. There's a little over five months until we end up playing and a few months before training camp starts. So, this is really just the foundational piece to a long year ahead.”
Daboll said those “expectations and standards” include something of a dress code for meetings (“It’s not like you're going to a private high school and having to wear a tie and stuff like that,” he said of requiring the players to wear team gear) and what he thinks it means to be a pro (“Accountability, dependability, resiliency”). He said he wants the Giants to try to “win every day.”
“Can't look too far down the road on this thing, it'll get you pretty quick,” he said. “It was a good introductory meeting. But I know we’re on April 4 here so let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.”
Notes & quotes: Daniel Jones said he will be cleared and “ready to go” for the start of this coming season but seemed to indicate that a medical green light on a return to full contact has yet to be granted. That may just be a formality as the quarterback won’t be involved in any physical contact until preseason games in August at the earliest … Jones said he is not concerned with the Giants’ decision on whether to use a fifth-year option on his rookie contract. “I’m focused on what we are doing here,” he said of the offseason program. The Giants have until early May to make that decision and are unlikely to use the option. Without it Jones will be playing on the last year of his contract in 2022 … Neither wide receiver Sterling Shepard (Achilles) and linebacker Blake Martinez (ACL) had a concrete timetable for return from their season-ending injuries last year. Both players took significant pay cuts this offseason to stay with the Giants … The Giants restructured the contract of cornerback Adoree’ Jackson to give themselves about $7 million in salary cap relief. General manager Joe Schoen had said such maneuvers, which push financial ramifications to the ledgers of later seasons, would be a “last resort” in the team’s grappling with the limited resources they inherited.
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.
