There are quite a few NFL head coaches who will be under the gun this season. On average, there are six to eight vacancies every offseason that need to be filled due to coaches being fired.

Last January, the New York Giants, after completing a deflating 3-14 season, decided they didn’t want to be in the market for a new head coach and general manager. Co-owner John Mara decided to keep both head coach Brian Daboll and GM Joe Schoen despite losing 25 of their last 34 games.

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“I had a conversation with (partner) Steve Tisch, and we spoke some more over the weekend. We came to the decision that staying with both of them is the best course of action for us right now. I think in Brian’s case, he was the Coach of the Year two years ago. That didn’t disappear all of a sudden. I still believe he can do that again,” Mara said.

“In Joe’s case, I thought we had an outstanding draft class this year. I thought we had a really good free agency period. I really like the staff that he’s put together and built. I think that they’re the right two guys to lead us going forward. I understand, believe me, that that’s not going to be the most popular decision in Giant land. But we believe it’s the right decision for us going forward.”

Schoen appears to have had another strong draft and has fortified the quarterback position with veterans Russell Wilson, Jameis Winston, and rookie Jaxson Dart. The Giants’ offense will likely be better in 2025. For a team that lost eight games by one score or less in 2024, the upgraded offense should lead to more wins.

That doesn’t mean that the pressure is off Daboll, however. Mara did say that he was “running out of patience” and that if he were in the same position this year that he’d take the heat for it.

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In a recent breakdown focusing on the players, coaches, and GMs under the most pressure this year, ESPN’s Bill Barnwell listed Daboll as a candidate for the hot seat.

Two years ago, a pair of first-time head coaches in the NFC led their teams to unexpected playoff berths, but they’ve gone in different directions since. While Daboll and Kevin O’Connell unsurprisingly took a step back in their second season, O’Connell’s Vikings returned back to the playoffs in his third season with a 14-win campaign, all while cycling through a series of different quarterbacks because of injuries. The Giants decided to entrench around quarterback Daniel Jones, but they went 9-25 over the past two seasons, including a 3-13 mark with Jones before they cut him late last season.

Did that unexpected run to the 2022 divisional round raise expectations too quickly? Daboll didn’t suddenly forget how to scheme open throwing lanes or create conflicts for defenders with the quarterback run game. He was never able to coax the same level of play out of Jones, though, who didn’t always have the sort of help a quarterback would want. The move to sign Drew Lock as a potential replacement delivered predictably unsatisfying results. Did the Giants get fooled by hiring a guy who was adjacent to Josh Allen — he previously was the Bills’ offensive coordinator — then falling further in love with him because Jones posted a career-low outlier of an interception rate (1.1%) in 2022?

The clock is ticking on Daboll’s chances of proving he wasn’t a one-year mirage in New York. The Giants finally overhauled their quarterback room, flirting with Matthew Stafford before signing Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston. They used their first-round pick on Jaxson Dart, who represents the long-term prospect they presumably expected to draft in 2023 before Jones’ career season in 2022 sent them in another direction. If Dart shows promise, Daboll will be able to make the case that his continued employment is the best thing for his quarterback’s future. If not? He should be in demand as an offensive coordinator elsewhere, but his time in New York will likely come to an end.

Mara once warned that Daboll could go from “Bono to Bozo” real quick, and flatlining again in 2025 would almost certainly result in the coach’s firing.

This article originally appeared on Giants Wire: Giants’ Brian Daboll named one of coaches under most pressure in 2025