Are the Giants better in 2024? They better be

The New York Giants believe they are better than they were a year ago, when they crashed from the high of a 2022 playoff victory to an ugly 6-11 season that didn’t even feel that good.

“I feel like we’ve improved in several areas,” GM Joe Schoen said recently. “Again, you can improve, the team still has to come together as a team. Every team is different. I know Dabs has talked about it. I talk about it. You still got to come together. I like the chemistry of the team, where we are now. I think that’s important. Some of the best teams aren’t always the most talented teams, but they come together, they work hard, they know their assignments, they execute.

“Again, we don’t know how this team is going to react when we’re down 10 or how they’re going to react when we’re up 10, when adversity strikes, what’s that going to look like. Again, talent-wise we like the group we have, we’re excited about them. We’ll see how they gel and how they execute once we get out there on Sunday.”

Quarterback Daniel Jones, who not only needs to play better himself than he did a year ago but needs the team to be better to keep his job, also believes he sees an improved team.

“I do think it’s a better team. I think we’ve improved in a number of areas. Across the board, yeah, we’re better. We’ve had a good training camp and we’re ready to go,” he said. “It’s always important to stay healthy and make sure we’re taking care of our bodies and doing everything we can to stay healthy. I feel good about where we are.”

Photo by Perry Knotts/Getty Images

The Giants know they had better be better.

Jones knows he has to be better. He knows the Giants would have moved up in the draft to select quarterback Drake Maye if the New England Patriots hadn’t tried to empty the Giants’ draft pick vault.

Jones isn’t happy about that. He doesn’t have to be. He shouldn’t be. In his heart, though, he has to know if he were in Schoen’s shoes he would have been considering the same move. Jones’ play in 2023 was atrocious, befitting of a rookie cutting his NFL teeth for a bad team rather than a fifth-year veteran on the second year of a moderately large multi-year contract.

Jones knows that if he isn’t better, at least as good as he was in 2022 and perhaps better than he’s ever been considering the effort the Giants have made to upgrade his receivers and his offensive line, he won’t be the quarterback in 2025.

Jones also should know, and probably does, that no matter how good he is individually he won’t finish the season as the team’s starting quarterback if he and his teammates don’t win enough games to be within realistic range of a playoff berth come the last quarter of the season. The fact that $23 million of his 2025 salary is guaranteed for injury guarantees that if the Giants are going nowhere this season — and know it — Jones won’t be playing.

Can Jones be better?

Every Giants fan with an ‘X’ account wants to analyze (over-analyze?) every spring or summer practice, every good or bad throw, every word the guy says, and whether his decision to keep or shave his scruffy-looking beard is the right choice.

The thing is, none of it matters. What matters is that coming off a torn ACL just nine months ago, Jones has been able to work every day without limitations. He has moved well and without hesitation.

What matters with Jones is what we see beginning Sept. 8 against the Minnesota Vikings. Can Jones take advantage of what should be the improved weaponry around him? Can he step up in an offense that is now quarterback-centric and not running back-centric?

Can we see something we haven’t seen from Jones since Joe Judge and Jason Garrett more or less brow-beat risk-taking out of his game? That is the willingness and ability he showed under Pat Shurmur during the early part of his career to push the ball down the field. Brian Daboll has demanded it all summer, and Jones has often delivered. He isn’t Josh Allen, but for those of you old enough to appreciate the reference he isn’t the soft-tossing Norm Snead, either. Can Jones combine downfield aggression with something akin to the clean football he played in 2022 when he led the league with a career-best 1.1% interception rate?

Schoen and Daboll know they need to be better, too. They know what the guy who signs their checks, co-owner John Mara, wants.

“I expect us to take a big step forward,” Mara said at the beginning of training camp. “It’s hard to articulate my expectations. I obviously want to show significant improvement over last year. But I’m not going to make any specific guarantees or demands or anything like that. But they know what I want to see.”

I do not believe Schoen and Daboll are, or should be, on the hot seat. Others disagree, I know. The GM and coach have had one good season and one bad one, albeit in the opposite order of what one might like to see to show progress toward becoming the legitimate, consistent contender the Giants are trying to build.

Mara and Steve Tisch have gotten rid of Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur, and Judge since they pushed Tom Coughlin out a door he did not want to walk through after the 2015 season. They are on their third general manager, having decided Jerry Reese was no longer up to the job and realized that Dave Gettleman was only making a bad situation worse.

I do not believe Mara and Tisch have an appetite for starting over — again. They did not want to quit on Judge. The coach forced their hand by embarrassing the franchise, blatantly showing he had no faith in his own team and giving a rambling, non-sensical 11-minute answer to a question that made it obvious he was in over his head as an NFL head coach.

The Giants crave the stability they haven’t had since Coughlin. They want Schoen and Daboll, the outsiders they finally turned to after Judge crashed and burned in 2021, to succeed. There are, in my view, signs that they can.

Ty Dunne of the fantastic subscription site GoLongTD.com, wrote an expose a few years ago detailing just how broken the Giants had become internally. Recently, Dunne wrote a three-part series on the Giants showing just how much things have changed inside the walls at 1925 Giants Drive.

As Dunne pointed out, Schoen had to reset both the roster and the front office. He also had to clean up the salary cap to get to a point where he could begin to chase real talent. Oh, and he had to get enough buy-in from an ownership group accused of being too involved in football decisions to be given the time, and the rope, to implement his vision of what he wanted the Giants to be.

Entering Year 3, Schoen has accomplished much of that. Dunne wrote:

The air is easier to breathe these days. For everyone.

The image of what a general manager should be has been bastardized and fictionalized to the point of many fans preferring a mythical creature who sits on a throne, says sweet nothings in public, and pretends to be on their phone if ever approached in private. There’s no such arrogance to Schoen. What you saw on HBO is what you get. As one ex-Giant scout deadpans, “this is not a family-friendly profession.” But Schoen tries. He wants those who work under him to be happy and fulfilled because — ultimately — that’s what burgeons better scouts, coaches, players. He cleaned up the building in ways nobody sees.

Still, there’s only one bottom line: W’s and L’s.

Ah, yes. Wins and losses. The ultimate bottom line.

What Schoen and Daboll have to do is not crash and burn in 2024, not have another season dependent upon something as random as DeVito-mania to keep it from going completely off the rails, to prevent Mara and Tisch from entertaining the idea that they don’t have the right people making the football decisions.

“I have a lot of confidence in this particular team,” Mara said of Schoen and Daboll. “The communication is great, and I think we’ve added some good pieces. Now, it’s time to show.”

Maybe it isn’t about the playoffs, or a specific number of wins. Maybe it is about what it looks — and feels — like. It can’t look like it did in 2023.

• It can’t feature a 40-0 loss in Week 1. Especially not when the Giants will be going all-out to celebrate their 100th season, including throwback uniforms and honoring the top 100 players in franchise history, as voted by a panel of those familiar with the team.
• It can’t feature a 1-5 start in which they are outscored 167-71.
• It can’t feature a 2-8 record in the first 10 games that officially made it a miserable year, with only an unexpected few weeks of sunshine from Tommy DeVito salvaging a dark season.
• It can’t feature 85 sacks of their quarterback and a -141 point differential that was third-worst in the league.
• It can’t feature internal coaching staff discord and disrespectful disgusted tablet flips in the direction of the quarterback on national television.

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It’s got to look like a functional, competitive football team.

Schoen and Daboll know this.

The unexpected winning in 2022 was perhaps Fool’s Gold. Perhaps it led them to make decisions they had not initially expected to make when they took charge, including re-upping with Jones.

The 2023 offseason felt messy. It felt confusing. Were they a contender? Were they under construction? It felt like they weren’t sure.

The approach to preparing for the season was also confusing.

There was little to no competitive work during spring practices, beyond 1-on-1 receiver vs. defender drills. All spring there were short practices and a lot of rehabbing players doing nothing.

Training camp was heavy on 7-on-7, light on 11-on-11, and the starting offense played just one preseason series.

The Giants arrived at the start of the season as healthy as they could be, but they weren’t ready. By the end of that first game, they were both embarrassed and injured, having lost star left tackle Andrew Thomas to a hamstring injury.

So, that didn’t work.

Props to Daboll for not stubbornly sticking to the way things were done in 2023.

Among the many changes to the Giants staff, they retooled the strength and conditioning group. Maybe that had something to do with the different tone of the spring and summer. Maybe it did not.

There is no denying, though, this offseason was different.

Daboll said that much of the offseason was geared around giving Jones, doggedly working his way back from last year’s torn ACL, the best chance to hit the ground running when the season started.

The Giants did 7-on-7 throughout OTAs, which was as much as Jones was allowed to do at that point in his rehab. Jones never missed a rep.

They did some 11-on-11 work in mandatory minicamp, making Jones unhappy but helping the rest of the team. Throughout training camp, the Giants consistently did 11-on-11 work.

Not only is that the best way for a full team to get ready — you have to play football to get ready to play football — but it helped Jones overcome any hesitancy about his knee. As Daboll said the more 11-on-11 work Jones did the more he got used to having bodies around his surgically repaired knee. The more he got comfortable that he could move around, protect himself, and still make plays on the run.

Jones also played a full half in the team’s second preseason game. I would have liked to have seen him play a quarter or so in the final preseason game against the New York Jets, but that is still more than he did in preseason a year ago.

The Giants did not go easy on Jones this offseason. They pushed him as hard as he could be pushed, and it was obvious that he pushed himself, as well. If he does not play well on Sept. 8 against the Vikings, lack of preseason preparation will not be an available excuse.

Schoen and Daboll have always talked about building a culture. They like to use the phrase “smart, tough, and dependable,” as silly or obvious as it may seem.

I was interested to watch a pair of injured veteran players who are new to the Giants — Jermaine Eluemunor and Brian Burns — force their way onto the practice field after suffering injuries. A third new Giant, rookie first-round pick Malik Nabers, pushed his way into some reps on a day the Giants were trying to hold him back simply because he was bored and wanted to work.

That’s leadership. That’s players being committed to their craft, and their team. That’s a good sign.

Photo by Perry Knotts/Getty Images

The Nabers effect

Since I just mentioned the No. 6 overall pick, now is a good time to discuss what the youngest player on the roster brings to the Giants.

He brings immense talent. He brings play-making. He brings game-changing ability.

He also brings an edge, and maybe that’s going to end up being the most impactful of all of the things he brings to the table.

‘Hard Knocks’ made it clear that the Giants always loved the talent they saw when they watched his film. Daboll could hardly contain his excitement whenever he talked about the kid. Honestly, he still can’t.

Daboll even let Nabers call his own play, which turned out to be a successful go-ball, during a practice early in training camp.

The Giants’ other receivers know what his talent can do for them.

“Having Malik helps me, it helps Wan’Dale (Robinson), it helps Slay (Darius Slayton),” Jalin Hyatt said during training camp. “He’s a great athlete, great player, and I’m actually glad that we added him. We can do a lot more things on offense.

“We can be more versatile. We can put guys in other spots. We can change what the defense sees with their eyes with Malik.”

The edge, though, is the thing that might be the trump card.

The Giants knew from the beginning that Nabers had a big personality. They knew they would have to learn it and get comfortable with it if they were going to select him. They know there will be times when the competitive part of him is unhappy when he goes long stretches without the ball, or when the quarterback throws it elsewhere when Nabers thinks he is open.

Here is what Assistant GM Brandon Brown said about the process of getting to know Nabers:

“So when you talk about going through the whole fact-finding journey with Malik, I think the first thing is giving someone grace. It’s knowing, one, what their origin is, how they were raised, the adversity that they’ve had to overcome, who their support system is,” Brown said. “And then, two, highlighting the unseen work. That’s the biggest thing with Malik. It’s the love of football. And I think when we talk about, yeah, he’s got dog, he’s got edge, but this guy does work when no one’s watching.

“We got countless anecdotes and stories about days off where Malik is in there catching jugs, running routes, doing the extra work where these aren’t the things that the average, call it scout or layman knows, but these are the extra tidbits because you’re tied into that building. So it’s almost like bringing the full, call it story full circle of, hey, this is what he’s done, this is what we’ve seen on game day, but what is his process? You go from the —everyone sees the A and the Z, but like to me, like the B to Y of — the nooks and crannies of what makes him him, what makes him tick, and how does he respond in those moments when no one’s watching?”

Nabers caught 17 of 18 passes Jones threw to him during two days of joint practices against the Detroit Lions. He ended up starting a fight after the one he didn’t catch. Maybe the Giants don’t want him throwing punches. They do, though, appreciate the competitiveness.

Dunne compared Nabers to the early days of Jeremy Shockey with the Giants. He wrote that Shockey, the irascible, hard-playing, and hard-partying tight end “changed the way Giants players attacked each day.”

Dunne wrote that Nabers’ attitude in starting that fight, not backing down when challenged, “is exactly what a team wallowing in bland irrelevance for a decade needs.” Dunne also wrote that Nabers is “central” to the Giants’ changing identity.

The fact that the Giants did not reject out of hand his request to wear the retired No. 1 jersey, instead going to the family of Ray Flaherty for permission — and getting it — shows the respect the organization already has for Nabers.

If they were worried about Nabers creating Odell Beckham-esque distractions or embarrassing the franchise, Mara would not have gone out on that limb.

“It shows how much trust they have in me, it shows how much they are really going to go to bat for me,” Nabers said.

Indeed, it does.

Nabers can repay the franchise by being the player they think he is going to be.

Daboll the play-caller

I am a fan of the Coughlin-esque CEO head coach. I like it when coaches run the entire team, not just one side of the ball. The sight of Ben McAdoo with that oversized play-card in front of his face during games still makes me shudder.

I was glad to see Daboll eschew offensive play-calling and make sure he was part of running games on both sides of the ball for the first two years of his tenure.

Now, though, I believe he is right to take over offensive play-calling. And, yes, we all know he will be doing it even though Daboll has yet to officially utter the words “I will be calling the offensive plays.”

He has done it every day since OTAs began, so it’s pretty obvious.

Why do I think it’s the right call?

To start with, it is what Daboll does best. It’s what he loves. His offensive scheming and play-designing is what got him the Giants’ head-coaching gig in the first place.

This is a make-or-break year for Daboll’s quarterback. He has a shiny new toy in Nabers. As good a coach as I believe offensive coordinator Mike Kafka is, there has always been the oddity of Kafka calling the plays in what has been Daboll’s offense.

There is heat on Daboll to win more games, and to get his offense to score more than the 15.6 points per game it did last year, 30th in the league.

I think he is right to lean into his strength and be the voice in Jones’ ear on game days.

Rather than scream at Kafka about the ball not getting down the field enough, he can control that himself.

Speaking of screaming, Daboll’s sideline demeanor was reportedly a major bone of contention for the coaching staff in 2023. There was word that some coaches felt Daboll’s temper and his yelling at them during games made it difficult for them to do their jobs.

Daboll has seemed calmer so far this year. Maybe that has something to do with his weight loss — when you feel better your mood is better. Maybe he is happier with his revamped coaching staff — he has gone out of his way since practice began in the spring to give assistant coaches their flowers whenever possible.

It is also possible, though, that Daboll having to focus on what play to call next may curb some of the sideline eruptions.

Whatever, I think Daboll calling the plays should be a plus for the offense.

Dunne, who lives in the Buffalo area, saw his work with the Bills first-hand and has deep connections with the team, is as big a Daboll booster as you’ll find. He wrote this:

In Daboll, the Giants hired a bright contrast from both Judge and Flores.

What’s revealed on your television screen after a maddening interception only tells a fraction of the story. It’s a common sight. A camera pans to Daboll and there’s the fireball head coach spewing expletives. Look closely next time and maybe your high-def will even pick up saliva spraying from a “What the f—k?”in 2019. Daniel Jones in 2022. Tyrod Taylor in 2023. Yet, if you called any player Daboll ever coached at random, odds are they’d stop whatever they’re doing to tell you how much they loved playing for him.

Daboll is hard on players because they know his intent is pure.

Unlike Judge (and that breed), he is authentic.

Unlike (Brian) Flores (and that breed), he empowers his quarterback.

Daboll is living proof a coach can be both player-friendly and demanding with the Generation Z athlete. Most spend their entire lives unable to thread this needle.

From Alabama to Buffalo to New York, for eight years, Tierney has seen up close how Daboll pulls this off.

“He’s the best I’ve been around at bringing people together in a positive way,” Tierney says. “He can reach anybody from any background. When you are around him a lot — you know the old saying that people ‘gravitate toward him.’ It’s interesting because it’s more like he gravitates toward people. He’s just a guy who you can hang out with no matter what. That helps in this business. Because that’s not always the case. Players. Coaches. Staff members. Pretty much anybody in the building, he’s going to find a way to relate to them and have a conversation and I think that’s what makes it good to come into work every day with him.”

Daboll has a go-to expression: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

That’s why he’s able to push players.

How will things turn out?

As I have detailed, I think the Giants made some worthwhile changes. I think the organization is set up in a more functional manner than it has been in many years. I think they prepared better this offseason than they did the previous year.

It all, though, comes back to those pesky wins and losses. Will there be enough in the ‘W’ column?

The over/under you commonly see for the Giants is 6.5 wins.

I can see scenarios where the Giants are over that number. I can also see scenarios where they are under. If I was a betting man — and I’m not — my money would be on the over.

Now, I haven’t drunk as much blue Kool-Aid as Dunne, who is tossing around the idea of winning the NFC East in 2024 and competing for championships not long after that.

I do think, though, that Schoen and Daboll have — after a couple of years of digging their way out from under the rubble — have set the Giants on a good path.

Now, all the players need to do is win enough games to prove it.