Brian Daboll’s Sunday audition to remain as Giants head coach plays to mixed reviews

What will matter most to Giants ownership — embarrassment or effort?

If Brian Daboll was hoping to use the last five games of this lost season to build a case for why he should remain as head coach of the New York Giants, Sunday’s 14-11 loss to the New Orleans Saints offered two ways to view it.

The bad

• The offense that is Daboll’s baby was pitiful. The Giants scored three points in their first 10 possessions. Their worst field position in their first seven possessions, was at their own 32-yard line. Five times they started drives with field position no worse than their own 43-yard line, with two of those drives beginning across midfield.

Of course, you can say the Giants were using their third starting quarterback of the season. That they were playing the backups to the backup offensive tackles. That Malik Nabers was not fully healthy. That the starting tight end is on IR.

Yet the offense wasn’t just bad Sunday. It has been bad all year. The Giants drafted Nabers, Johnson and running back Tyrone Tracy. They signed three good veteran starting offensive linemen. Daboll, a supposed offensive guru, took over play calling. Yet, the Giants are averaging 14.9 points per game, last in the league and worst of Daboll’s tenure.

That is a major hit to Daboll’s reputation, and maybe to the argument that he is the right guy to draft and develop a new quarterback.

• The Giants continue to play with no discipline. Yes, Sunday’s roster was filled with replacement players. The costly penalties, special teams mistakes, dropped passes and inability to win close games, though, have gone on all year. The Giants are 1-7 in one-score games, 1-8 in games decided by 10 points or less.

Malik Nabers didn’t know how to explain the constant stream of weekly mistakes.

“That’s just the New York Giants this year,” he said.

• The fans are embarrassed. The plane that flew overhead before the game asking co-owner John Mara to “fix the dumpster fire” was the first time since 1978 something like that has happened before a Giants home game. The stadium was maybe two-thirds full Sunday. There were tickets available on the secondary market on Sunday morning for less than $10. At least a couple of the fans who did show up wore paper bags over their heads.

Brad Penner-Imagn Images

• The Giants are now 8-22 over the past two seasons. They are 10-27-1 since starting 7-2 in Daboll’s rookie season of 2022. Daboll is now 17-29-1, a .372 winning percentage. Only Bill Arnsparger (7-28, .200), Pat Shurmur (9-23, .281), and Joe Judge (10-23, .303) have been worse.

The good

There is really only one thing Daboll could use to make a case for staying on.

The Giants, with a roster missing the majority of its best players and with nothing to play for except pride, fought to the bitter end. They came up short. They made plenty of mistakes. The offense, as I said, was brutal. The depleted defense, though, played surprisingly well. The Giants did not, though, embarrass themselves. They had an opportunity to win, or at least get to overtime before one of those costly mistakes that have been far too prevalent this season.

After a lopsided 30-7 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers days after the waiving of Daniel Jones during which it looked like players were going through the motions, the Giants have played hard — not well, but hard — during their last two games.

Quarterback Drew Lock said “everybody” is still buying into Daboll’s message.

“Because, shoot, what they’re saying is true. You go out there and bust ass for four quarters, these little details keep sneaking in and that was a game where the defense goes out and plays their butt off the whole game and we didn’t put enough points on the board,” Lock said. “The messages are all true, there’s no trying to pull the wool over our eyes in there. Everything that’s coming out of Dabs’ mouth is true and we’ve got to keep pressing, keep going.”

Lock called the Giants a “resilient group.”

“Shoot, when you’re 2-11, you’ve got to be resilient. You’re going out there with pride, with passion for the game. Love the game and you’re going to come out there and give everything you’ve got and just try to taste that win again,” Lock said. “Get one of those, Mondays feel good, the whole week of practice feels good. Got to keep grinding, keep pushing, keep battling.

“That locker room is tight – it’s one of the closest locker rooms I’ve ever been in. Zero finger pointing. It’s nice to be in that and I think guys have handled this the best they could and we’re going to continue to handle it and try to get a win here in these last couple of games.”

Will that kind of effort continue from a frustrated, depleted roster over the season’s final four weeks?

What will matter more?

When it comes to determining whether coach Daboll, and maybe GM Joe Schoen, get a chance to draft and develop a quarterback who could potentially help the Giants out of Wilderness Years, Part 2 what will Mara and Steve Tisch weigh more?

Will they care more about the won-loss record and the fans’ reaction to the product? Or, the idea that the players still seem to be playing hard for the coach, and that Daboll does have a reputation for developing quarterbacks?

Daboll did not make a Judge-style 11-minute pitch for his job when asked why he should stay as head coach.

“I’m disappointed we have two wins,” Daboll said. “So, we’re just going to keep on grinding it out and try to keep developing these young players and get ready to play a great team next week.”

My belief is that Mara is looking — and looking hard — for reasons not to blow things up and start over for the fifth time since Tom Coughlin was ushered out the door in 2015. Will he find them?

We will know in roughly four weeks.