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The final seven games of this miserable 2-8 (so far) Giants season are all about answering two big questions, now that Daniel Jones has (correctly) been put in bubble wrap.
How high will the Giants draft in 2025, as they replace Jones? And will general manager Joe Schoen and coach Brian Daboll get a chance to pick and mold that new quarterback?
Maybe it’ll be Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders. Or perhaps Miami’s Cam Ward. Or Texas’ Quinn Ewers. There’s still seven games for the 2025 draft order to sort itself out — plenty of time for Tommy DeVito to screw up the quarterback-seeking Giants’ draft position for a second straight year.
And there’s still seven games for Daboll to keep stumbling — and lose his job. It’s far from a lock that either Daboll or Schoen will return in 2025.
But let’s assume both are back — and get to pick a new quarterback like Sanders, Ward, or Ewers. In that case, how much time will co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch give Daboll to mold the new quarterback like he molded Josh Allen in Buffalo for four seasons?
Well, it’s entirely possible Daboll is one-and-done with the new quarterback after 2025, especially if he finishes this season with, say, four or five wins and still manages to keep his job. (It’s hard to imagine Daboll sticking around after 2-15 or 3-14, considering he went 6-11 last year.)
Mara and Tisch surely will not have patience for much more losing, even with a high draft pick rookie quarterback, and even though they put Jones through so much change early in his career.
It’s very easy to see how this could be a rinse-and-repeat situation with Jones’ replacement. Remember, the Giants drafted Jones sixth overall in 2019. That wound up being the second and final season for coach Pat Shurmur. Then came two seasons of Joe Judge (with two different offensive play callers) and now three seasons of Daboll (also with two different play callers).
When the Giants hired Daboll in 2022, Mara regretfully talked about how the organization had done “everything possible to screw up” Jones through his first three seasons — with two coaches and three play callers (all of whom were out the door at that point, in early 2022).
As it turned out, while that lack of continuity didn’t help, Jones just was not good enough. He finishes 24-44-1 in 69 regular season starts for the Giants, including 19-41 against teams other than Washington and 3-13 since he got what is essentially a two-year, $82 million contract.
Still, Mara surely has to understand that yanking a coach (and play caller) out from under a high draft pick quarterback after just one season isn’t ideal — considering Mara did it after 2019 with Shurmur (who was a terrible hire) and Jones (who turned out to be a terrible quarterback).
Eventually, though, Mara could also reach the conclusion that Daboll is a terrible hire, despite that 9-7-1 debut season and wild-card playoff win at the Vikings. (After all, Daboll is 8-19 since the beginning of last season — and he has lost five straight games, for his second straight 2-8 start.)
It’s worth noting that Mara will no longer be paying Judge’s buyout after this season. Which would ease the financial burden of firing Daboll — who, like Judge, got a five-year contract. That means Daboll’s deal runs through 2026. So firing him after 2025 would not be a big issue, buyout-wise.
It would, however, impact the early development of Jones’ replacement. Yet if Daboll continues to lose in 2025 — a third straight unsuccessful season — Mara and Tisch might feel like they have no choice but to send him packing.
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Darryl Slater may be reached at [email protected].
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