Giants keeping coach Brian Daboll, GM Joe Schoen after 3-14 season
After one of the worst seasons in franchise history, the Giants will keep the same leadership in place for 2025.
Coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen will return for a fourth season despite overseeing a 3-14 campaign, the most losses in a single Giants season.
The decision was made after president and CEO John Mara met with chairman Steve Tisch over the weekend.
Mara also met for several hours with Daboll and Schoen on Friday. Ultimately, he decided keeping them was the best choice for now.
“We stunk this year. The results on the field were not what we wanted them to be,” Mara said Monday. “There were a number of factors that went into that. A lot of that has already been discussed with the coach and with Joe and will continue to be discussed.
“But I liked what I heard from them on Friday afternoon. I like what their plan is going forward and we’re going to stay with it.”
Daboll and Schoen each took accountability in separate news conferences for the low win total. Schoen added that he “never wavered” in his belief that he’d return next season.
At the same time, things need to get better going forward.
“We had three wins, not good enough,” Schoen said. “But that’s what we’ll spend the next four months doing between the draft and free agency. Upgrading the roster the best we can. Looking at the organization top to bottom to see what’s best.”
In bringing back Daboll, Mara noted that he was named Coach of the Year in 2022 and said he believes it could happen again. As for Schoen, Mara praised last offseason with a strong 2024 draft class and additions such as Jon Runyan Jr. and Brian Burns who made an immediate impact.
He also didn’t want to make a rash decision that felt like “one step forward and two steps back.”
Still, Mara made it clear that improvement needs to be more immediate.
“It better not take too long because I’ve just about run out of patience,” Mara said.
It’s not hard to see why.
The Giants, celebrating their 100th season, had a franchise record 10-game losing streak, had a franchise-worst eight home losses and lost 11 of their last 12 games. They also finished 0-6 in NFC East play, a first in team history.
Mara called this year’s record “lousy.”
Daniel Jones went from the starting quarterback in Week 1 to being released in November. After Daboll went 9-7-1 in 2022, plus a playoff win, the Giants have gone 9-25 over the last two years.
Mara couldn’t say confidently that the current roster is much better than it was three years ago.
“We need to win more games for us to be able to prove that point,” he said. “But there’s just a better feeling in the building now that we’ve got the right pieces in place. We have a lot of holes to fill, and that’s what this offseason is going to be about.”
The obvious answer is finding a quarterback, which Mara and Schoen agree is the No. 1 priority after having one of the league’s worst offenses. The Giants own the No. 3 pick in the NFL Draft and also could be active in free agency to find a quarterback.
While Schoen understands that things need to get better quickly, he doesn’t want to speed up his timeline by taking wild swings this offseason to potentially save his job.
“We’re going to build this thing the right way,” he said. “I’m not going to do a Hail Mary for self-preservation or anything like that. We have a plan in place that we believe in and we’re going to stick with that.’’
It’s on Schoen and Daboll to ensure that come September, the team they’re leading is in better shape.
“If I’m standing here a year from now and we’re having the same conversation, I’ll take the heat for it,” Mara said. “But we still believe that it’s the right decision going forward.”
Evan Barnes covers the Giants for Newsday. He previously covered the Brooklyn Nets, Memphis football and the Memphis Grizzlies and also covered prep sports in Los Angeles.
