Giants starting over again; this franchise doesn't do things the way it used to
Giants general manager Joe Schoen (left) has surived where coach Brian Daboll did not. Credit: Brad Penner
Let’s try this again, shall we?
For the third time this season, the Giants will attempt to start — or restart — their season.
The first try with Russell Wilson as quarterback resulted in three straight losses.
The second, with rookie Jaxson Dart replacing Wilson, started out with some spark but fizzled fairly quickly. Not that the expectations around Dart diminished at all, but when his top receiver and favorite running back were injured, the wins stopped coming.
Then, last week, Dart joined them on the shelf, suffering the first documented concussion of his NFL career.
So Opening Day III is here.
It comes with an interim head coach, as Mike Kafka takes over from the fired Brian Daboll. It arrives with an interim quarterback, as Jameis Winston will make his Giants debut (he has leapfrogged Wilson on the depth chart and is holding down the starting spot until Dart is cleared to return). And it drives only interim interest from a quickly souring fan base that barely shows up and watches through its fingers as the franchise attempts yet again to set itself right.
Sunday’s game against the Packers at MetLife Stadium definitely will be the beginning of something. As it approaches, it feels like the beginning of the end. There are very few organizational levers left to pull to infuse any more talent, urgency, energy and production into this season.
We have entered the zombie phase of this year’s schedule. Kickoff is at 1 p.m.
It wasn’t that long ago that these things happened to other franchises, not the Giants. No, never the Giants.
Oh, sure, they had fired their head coach before, but that was back in what, 1930? And the interim they brought in to help replace that guy? Steve Owen, who was wrapping up his final years as a player for the team. He and quarterback Bennie Friedman led a revolt by the players against coach LeRoy Andrews and finished the season in charge as co-interims (winning both of the remaining games on the schedule!). Owen wound up sticking around for another 23 seasons running the squad, winning two NFL championships.
The trail of coaches after him included some memorable and forgettable names, but they all lasted through the seasons they began coaching.
Allie Sherman gets an asterisk here, having been fired in the preseason after losing to the Jets, but that was in 1969, and as any baby boomer will tell you, no one should be held accountable for anything they did in 1969.
The Giants didn’t always win — in fact, for a stretch, they rarely did — but they had stability and grace and dignity and their own way of handling matters as a family-run business.
Then came 2017. Less than a season after Ben McAdoo made the playoffs as a rookie head coach, they fired him and general manager Jerry Reese the day after the game in which they benched Eli Manning for Geno Smith. Interim head coach Steve Spagnuolo quickly reinstated Manning for the remaining four games of that year, but he couldn’t reinstate what had happened to the Giants’ image. They no longer were special. They became just like everyone else.
At least that made it somewhat easier for ownership to make an in-season coaching move for the second time in a decade this past week. It felt a little less unprecedented. A little less anathema to their essence . . . or at least what they perceive that essence to be.
With seven games remaining, it definitely is the earliest in the season the Giants have ever made such a move (excepting, again, when they finally did say “Goodbye, Allie”).
But even this doesn’t feel like a turf-quaking moment for the organization and the reverence it once held. The Giants fired their coach in the middle of the season and the news was met mostly with a shrug. Hardly anyone has come forth arguing that Daboll got a bad deal.
It was time.
Those who have voiced their displeasure with the decision have done so because they see it as a half-measure; they wanted general manager Joe Schoen shown the door along with Daboll. Instead, the team announced that Schoen will head the search for the next full-time head coach. Now that’s the ol’ Giants Way!
Meanwhile, this 2025 season rolls on. They have a new head coach and a new quarterback, both for the time being. They have new meeting schedules and practice routines. New results? We’ll see. Expectations are not exceedingly high for that.
The Giants also have a new place in the football universe, though.
They no longer can hover above the frayed chaos they once looked down on the rest of the league for wallowing in. They no longer are exempt from the madness and missteps that other teams partake in. They used to stand out because they avoided those matters. Now they stand out as the sport’s most glaring example of them.
The Giants may figure all of this out. They may stumble out of their own chaos and upon their next great coach, as they did with Steve Owen. They could be on the verge of having Dart become their next iconic superstar. They could even win a few games this season. Hey, let’s set simple goals for them: They might even beat the Packers, or at least not blow a double-digit lead against them.
They already have lost what once made them special, however.
For that there is no interim, no getting it back, no restart.
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.
