PHILADELPHIA — The Giants have forfeited the right to be taken seriously as an NFL franchise until further notice.
Sunday’s developments appeared to indicate that co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch could retain Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll as GM and head coach for 2025.
If that is true, it means the Giants (3-14) have lowered their organization’s standard for what is acceptable in New York.
It means they are no longer the franchise their outdated, nationally polished reputation paints them to be.
It means they are irrelevant. An afterthought.
A basement-dwelling franchise that has lived there so long, they can now see perfectly in the dark — and they’ve confused that with the lights coming on.
Keeping Schoen and Daboll either would mean Giants’ ownership doesn’t know what bad football looks like or doesn’t mind it.
It also would mean they are prioritizing something other than winning after Sunday’s 20-13 loss to the NFC East rival Philadelphia Eagles (14-3), which clinched the Giants’ first winless division record (0-6) in franchise history.
The defeat marked the Giants’ 12th consecutive loss at Lincoln Financial Field dating back to 2013. The Giants rotated starters in and out with backups. The Eagles played almost all backups and still won.
A roughing the passer penalty on Kayvon Thibodeaux, Schoen’s first-ever Giants draft pick at No. 5 overall in 2022, cost the Giants dearly late in the fourth quarter.
A scary possibility arose Sunday morning when ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that “John Mara … has railed against the NFL for making sure that the league doesn’t have this dead money in coaches’ salaries” and “Brian Daboll’s got time left:”
Are Mara and Tisch keeping Schoen and Daboll into the fourth season of their five-year contracts because of … money?
Because they don’t want to be paying the last coach while hiring the next coach, like they had to do with Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur and Joe Judge?
Say it ain’t so.
Maybe NFL commissioner Roger Goodell needs to step in and fix the Giants here in 2025 like former commish Pete Rozelle did in 1979.
They lost a franchise record 10 straight games this season. They didn’t win a single game in the NFC East.
Despite a playoff berth and a postseason victory in their regime’s 2022 rookie season, Schoen and Daboll are now 19-33-1 overall through three years.
That includes a 12-31-1 record in their last 44 regular season games and a 1-12-0 record against the Eagles and Dallas Cowboys, including playoffs.
Rookie receiver Malik Nabers set a new Giants franchise record for catches in a single season (109) with his 108th grab with around eight minutes remaining in Sunday’s third quarter. That snapped Steve Smith’s 107-catch mark from 2009.
But Daboll has overseen one of the NFL’s worst offenses after taking over playcalling full-time.
And Nabers’ individual promise did not help the Giants’ bottom line.
Neither did Saquon Barkley rushing for 2,000 yards after Schoen let him walk to the Giants’ biggest rival in free agency.
Neither did Schoen’s poor personnel moves and underwhelming draft picks — or Daboll’s 2023 coaching staff dysfunction and numerous game management flaws.
Pass rusher Brian Burns — the only healthy veteran leader with pedigree under contract for next season — said he is tired of turnover after going through constant regime changes with the Carolina Panthers before being traded to New York.
So he wants Schoen and Daboll to stay.
“It happened to me four or five [times], I don’t know how many, in Carolina,” Burns said. “Do I want it? Not really. I would like some stability. I would like [Daboll] and Joe to stay so we could get rolling next year without having to start a whole new regime and whole new everything. That’s been my life in the NFL so far.”
Veteran tight end Chris Manhertz said that the players must share in the accountability, too.
“Everyone from the players on up has had a hand in this result,” Manhertz said. “So I can’t subscribe to the idea that it’s just a leadership issue from the top.”
The GM and coach have caused the franchise and the roster to regress significantly, though. And many of the Giants’ leaders are injured or absent and no longer around to speak for this abandoned ship.
The airplane banners over MetLife Stadium and the fan outrage begging Mara for change have recurred so often that the shock value is gone.
That doesn’t mean the Giants should get comfortable in their new normal: irrelevance. But that’s exactly what they’ll be doing if they retain Schoen and Daboll.
They’ll be telling their fans that they have reset the franchise’s standard.
They’ll be telling their fans to get used to the darkness.
