-
Jordan Raanan
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — New York Giants coach Brian Daboll is out after the team blew another double-digit lead on Sunday in Chicago, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Monday.
It was the second time this season they lost after leading by at least 10 points with under four minutes remaining. They became just the second team since the NFL merger to do that, joining only the 2004 Seattle Seahawks.
Assistant head coach and offensive coordinator Mike Kafka will serve as the Giants’ interim coach, a source told ESPN. Kafka was a finalist for multiple head coaching jobs over the past two years.
The Giants (2-8) have won just two of their first 10 games for the third straight year. They are 11-33 since the start of the 2023 season.
Daboll was asked whether he was worried about his job on Sunday with the team at 2-8.
“I’m just focused on these guys in the locker room,” he said.
Rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart also suffered a concussion in the Giants’ 24-20 loss Sunday. That was the fourth time Dart has been evaluated for a concussion this year, including the preseason.
Daboll won Coach of the Year in his first season with the Giants when they surprisingly went 9-7-1 and won a playoff game in Minnesota. It has fallen apart ever since, even though Daboll was considered to be the driving force behind drafting Dart. The first-round pick has accounted for 17 total touchdowns in his first seven starts.
But the Giants still weren’t winning games, and they were blowing leads in unprecedented fashion. New York held double-digit leads in four road games that ended in losses.
Daboll was 20-40-1 as the Giants’ head coach. His .336 winning percentage puts him behind the likes of Ben McAdoo and Ray Perkins.
The hot-headed coach had a rocky four years with the Giants filled with incidents that included a bad-blooded split with defensive coordinator Wink Martindale after the ’23 season and saw him fined $100,000 for approaching the blue medical tent while Dart was being examined for a concussion earlier this year.
Along the way general manager Joe Schoen had to, at one point, monitor the coaching headsets to evaluate the coach’s communication. Daboll also flipped a tablet at former quarterback Daniel Jones and turned over a good chunk of his staff over the past two years.
Daboll and Joe Schoen were brought back after the team went 3-14 last season. But they were eventually put on the hot seat when owner John Mara said after the season that he expected better results.
“I’m aware of how many games we’ve won, and obviously the results are not even close to what we want them to be,” Mara said at the time. “They’re going to have to get better if we’re going to move on to year [five].”
Daboll was hired in 2022 after serving four years as the coordinator for the Buffalo Bills, where he spearheaded the development of quarterback Josh Allen. He spent a large chunk of his career with multiple stints as an assistant under Bill Belichick in New England.
