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Inside: We’re covering last night’s game, the Giants’ pre- and post-Brian Daboll.

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Eagles win a slog

Yesterday felt like a Thursday, right?

The football game certainly did. After a scoreless first half, the NFL’s first in any game since 2023, last night ended with a “Thursday Night Football”-like 10-7 score. Plenty of takeaways here.

Packers kicker Brandon McManus’ final-second field goal fell just short (twice, due to Nick Sirianni’s timeout), but it wasn’t the most intense moment of the game:

I’m not sure what happens to Eagles LB Jalyx Hunt, let alone the official, if that accidentally connects. Anyway, the Philly victory dropped Green Bay to third in the NFC North:

Lions (6-3)
Bears (6-3)
Packers (5-3-1)
Vikings (4-5)

I’m also not sold on Jordan Love, and Matt LaFleur’s future is raising questions. A win against the Giants next week might not be enough to quiet concerns. More on those Giants below. As for the Eagles (7-2), they’re now tied with the Rams and Seahawks for tops in the NFC. Their conference showdown against the Lions in Week 11 is must-see TV.

Next for New York

Outside of the starting quarterback and team ownership, obviously no individual shapes the trajectory of a franchise more than the head coach.

We’ve seen the Patriots revert to playoff form under Mike Vrabel and the Bears’ offense thrive with Ben Johnson. Jim Harbaugh arrived in L.A. and redefined what it meant to be a Charger.

Brian Daboll once had similar effects on New York, or so it seemed. The former Bills OC inherited a 2022 team that hadn’t made the playoffs in seven seasons and had won just 14 games across the previous three. Their starting quarterback at the time, Daniel Jones, had thrown 21 touchdowns to 17 interceptions in his last two pre-Daboll seasons.

Daboll’s arrival brought immediate improvement. He hired what was then considered an all-star staff, and in his first season, New York went 9-7-1, winning their first playoff game since 2011. Jones looked like a franchise quarterback, and Daboll won Coach of the Year. Going back and reading internet comments from back then, it’s clear Giants fans believed their coaching situation had been solved.

Then the losing started, and never stopped. The turning point was a 38-7 loss to Philadelphia in their next playoff game. Since that blowout, the Giants won just 25 percent of their games, and our beat reporters’ stories on Daboll’s tenure now include lines like this:

💬 “Players openly questioned everything about the program, from play calling to effort, after the blowout loss to the Bucs in Week 12 last season …

“Daboll’s shortcomings also extended far beyond the on-field product. He was forced to replace half of his assistants after his second season due to a toxic atmosphere among the coaching staff.”

Daboll’s record is 20-40-1, with a winning percentage that ranks 187th among the NFL’s 204 coaches who’ve ever had at least four years at the helm. Ownership had enough, and out Daboll went.

What’s next for the Giants?

Offensive coordinator Mike Kafka is the interim head coach. That’s solid. Unfortunately, general manager Joe Schoen remains, and will likely lead the search for the next coach. That’s awful. Assigning blame in the NFL is difficult, which is why it’s almost always better to clean house.

But Giants ownership rarely does that. This is the third time in the past decade that they fired a coach while retaining the general manager, who never lasted more than two additional years in either of those instances.

In Dan Duggan’s story on Schoen’s status, he makes a convincing argument for moving on from the general manager who hand-picked Daboll:

💬 “The limited success the Giants enjoyed under the Daboll-Schoen regime came in their first season when they unexpectedly went 9-7-1 and won a playoff game. That success was mostly driven by coaching, since Schoen’s hands were tied in his first year by the messy cap situation he inherited from Gettleman.

“As Schoen’s imprint on the roster has grown, the results have gotten worse every year.”

It’s not all bad, to be fair. The team has talent, and Schoen drafted Malik Nabers, Jaxson Dart and Cam Skattebo. He assembled an elite defensive line and kept the Giants in a good cap position. They’re better than their 2-8 record, and perhaps their next coach proves that. (Still, move on!)

Coaching candidates

Dart is about to join a long list of first-round quarterbacks forced to spend their first two seasons working with two different head coaches, with mixed results among them so far.

If the best-case scenario for Dart and the Giants is trying to find either the next Sean McVay or hoping for a Mike Vrabel to appear, they could just trade for Mike Tomlin.

Otherwise, the candidate pool feels pretty limited to names like Seahawks OC Klint Kubiak, Commanders OC Kliff Kingsbury or Dart’s former coach at Ole Miss, Lane Kiffin, who’s won a lot of games since his brief 2000s run as Raiders coach at age 31. Maybe former Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy, who has a Super Bowl among his 11 career playoff wins?

A few years ago, The Athletic shared 10 guidelines to follow when hiring a head coach. I urge Giants ownership to give it a read. Despite the seemingly shallow pool, the key criteria should be an offensive-minded coach, or at least one with a plan, and not just because Dart’s development is a priority.

Since 2014, guess how many of the 44 teams in conference championship games had offenses that ranked outside the league’s top 12 in yards per play? Just three. Defense? Eighteen. Someone with a plan for sustained offensive success is a must.

It’s probably a fantasy to think the Giants handle this right, though.

Extra Points

🎯 2026 draft. In case you missed it, Brugler’s top-50 board is live. The quarterback group is weaker than expected, and his top passer, Alabama’s Ty Simpson, might surprise you.

📈 Bengals hopes. Burrow might be back sooner than expected, as the team cleared him yesterday to practice. Full details here.

📊 Stock Report. Where should Caleb Williams rank among the NFL’s best quarterbacks? He keeps climbing Jeff Howe’s QB Rankings, while Matthew Stafford overtakes Patrick Mahomes at No. 1.

📓 Another takeover. A week after Dan Campbell took back play calling for the Lions offense, Dan Quinn took a similar approach with the Commanders defense, assuming the duties of a coordinator.

▶️ Yesterday’s most-clicked: Latest details on the standoff between YouTube TV and ESPN.

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