New York Giants fans spent all of 2025 waiting in vain for a good bounce. They are desperate for things to finally break their way in the first week of 2026, a fact that has nothing to do with their season finale against Dallas.

A fact that has everything to do with their opening at head coach and the AFC North events that could dramatically impact it.

It seems the last time Giants fans spent a lot of time worrying about a current AFC North franchise, that franchise, the Baltimore Ravens, represented the old AFC Central in a Super Bowl XXXV smackdown of their 2000 Jim Fassel-Kerry Collins team. A quarter century later, the Ravens are back on New York’s radar. So are their Sunday night opponents, the Steelers, in a win-or-else clash for the league’s final playoff spot, along with the beleaguered Cleveland Browns.

Those three teams employ head coaches in Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin, Baltimore’s John Harbaugh and Cleveland’s Kevin Stefanski who could potentially become available in the coming days.

All three would move straight to the top of the Giants’ wish list of candidates in a job market that is almost as uninspiring as the Giants themselves.

Chances are, only one or two of these coaches will leave their current positions. Stefanski is the one who could get outright fired. If either Tomlin or Harbaugh goes, it will likely be a mutual decision driven by a mutual belief that change would benefit employer and employee. The smart money says the Steelers and Ravens won’t do anything to embarrass the two Super Bowl champs who have brought honor to their franchises and cities for the better part of two decades.

It’s also possible that Tomlin and Harbaugh will stay right where they are, regardless of who wins and loses Sunday night, which could represent another bad break for the bad football team that is the New York Football Giants.

But for argument’s sake, let’s make the Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Cleveland coaches free agents, or assets that can be obtained in a trade for reasonable draft-pick compensation. In terms of best fits for the Giants, I’d rank them this way:

1) Tomlin

1A) Harbaugh

3) Stefanski

As I wrote in November, Tomlin and the Giants would be ideal partners for all concerned. The Steelers coach fits the tough-guy archetype that works for the Giants, whose four Super Bowl titles were won by Bill Parcells and Tom Coughlin. Pairing Tomlin’s brand of credibility and accountability with Jaxson Dart, the kind of young, dynamic quarterback Pittsburgh hasn’t suited up for years, makes the most sense. The same Giants who have gone 12-38 over the last three years could be playoff contenders in Year 1 under Tomlin.

Harbaugh would bring a similar credibility to New York, though it could be argued that — with a superstar quarterback in two-time MVP Lamar Jackson — recent Ravens teams have underachieved in the playoffs. The Giants would sell their souls to have that problem. They already know that if Tomlin is a walk-off grand slam, Harbaugh is at least a game-tying three-run homer in the ninth.

The son of a longtime NBA executive (Ed Stefanski) who worked in tough markets — Philadelphia and New York (with the Nets) — Kevin Stefanski is the most likely to be looking for a new job after a second straight miserable season. But twice in his six years in Cleveland, Stefanski won 11 games and Coach of the Year honors. That’s enough to elevate him in the eyes of an organization that has made a series of hiring mistakes in the post-Tom Coughlin era, gambling on three overmatched novices (Ben McAdoo, Joe Judge and Brian Daboll) and on one candidate with head-coaching experience, Pat Shurmur, who went 9-23 with the Browns before going 9-23 with the Giants.

Mike McCarthy is the only current free agent who also belongs at the top of the market, given that he has won a Super Bowl and nearly 61 percent of his games. A wild card, Antonio Pierce, has a strong relationship with Giants ownership (they talk often), dating back to his playing days and a 9-17 Raiders record that looks better after Pete Carroll’s dreadful season with a better quarterback (Geno Smith) than Pierce had to work with.

It’s possible that one of the many coordinators the Giants are considering is the next Ben Johnson or Liam Coen, and in a different time and place, the Giants could take that shot and live with the results. But after their swings and misses on the recent rookies, they need some degree of certainty this time around, especially if general manager Joe Schoen is retained for a fifth year.

The record says Schoen shouldn’t be within a half-dozen zip codes of this next coaching decision, especially after he hired his Buffalo bud, Daboll, over the more qualified Brian Flores. The Giants are still favored to stick with Schoen rather than conduct a second major search that would require reorganizing the front office and replacing some of the Schoen lieutenants they like … all while team president and co-owner John Mara battles cancer.

What happens if Schoen is spared in a Monday review with Mara and partner Steve Tisch before Tomlin or Harbaugh leaves Pittsburgh or Baltimore days later and makes personnel power and/or the right to pick his own GM a prerequisite for taking the Giants job?

Tough question with a pretty easy solution … as long as the team is willing to move Schoen into a diminished role in the roster-building process.

This much is clear: Mara and Tisch have no margin for error. Their team is 61 games under .500 since Eli Manning’s last winning season, 2016. The Giants need to become the Giants again, at last.

And along those lines, the AFC North could lend a helping hand Sunday night and Monday. Stefanski would upgrade the Giants’ choices, and either Tomlin or Harbaugh would put them in position to land the kind of difference-maker Mike Vrabel has been in New England.

The Giants have to get a little lucky here. The good news is they are long overdue for that favorable bounce.