John Harbaugh already has lost one coach from his new Giants staff that the team announced on Friday.
Matt Robinson, who was just hired as the Giants’ assistant defensive line coach, has pivoted to Las Vegas to become the Raiders’ new safeties coach under first-year head coach Klint Kubiak.
The Seahawks’ run to winning Super Bowl LX delayed Kubiak, Seattle’s offensive coordinator, from assembling his full staff until mid-February.
The Giants gave Robinson permission to make the move. Now they need a new assistant alongside new defensive line coach Dennis Johnson.
Robinson worked for Harbaugh in Baltimore for the last five seasons. He was their outside linebackers coach last season in 2025, but he was not going to have his own position room in New York.
Harbaugh retained outside linebackers coach Charlie Bullen in the same role and added run game coordinator to his title. He brought Donald D’Alesio from Baltimore to be his secondary coach and passing game coordinator.
And he hired former Broncos cornerbacks coach Addison Lynch to coach New York’s defensive backs after one season running the CBs room in Denver.
New Raiders defensive coordinator Rob Leonard, a former Giants assistant, crossed paths with Robinson on Harbaugh’s Ravens staff in 2022.
Leonard was Baltimore’s outside linebackers coach that year. Robinson was in his second year as a defensive coaching fellow, working primarily with the defensive backs in 2022 after assisting with the outside linebackers in 2021.
So Leonard is bringing a familiar face to the desert, and Harbaugh has another position to fill.
OTHER STAFF NOTES
Adam Bennett, the University of Miami’s head athletic trainer since 2023, is now the Giants’ new head athletic trainer, taking over Ronnie Barnes’ longtime post. The Giants noted that Barnes, who has been with the franchise since 1976, will “continue” overseeing the team’s medical services, which he has done since 1981. But that is semantics. Barnes was reassigned upon Harbaugh’s arrival, and Bennett is now the head athletic trainer. Bennett is a certified athletic trainer, strength and conditioning specialist and holds a certified performance sports scientist certification. … Daniel Stern, Harbaugh’s director of football strategy and assistant quarterbacks coach in Baltimore, is taking a job with the Super Bowl champion Seahawks rather than staying in Baltimore or following Harbaugh to New York. This is a big deal. Stern is highly respected in the worlds of analytics and game management and has been a key asset to Harbaugh for the past decade in Baltimore. He was responsible for scripting situational periods of practice and advising Harbaugh on in-game clock/game management and coaches’ challenges. Instead, Harbaugh brought Ravens football analyst Noah Riley to New York as a “football analyst, quality control” coach, and he is expected to contribute in those critical areas. … The Giants have a whopping eight coaches on their new strength and conditioning staff. They retained executive director of player performance Aaron Wellman and four other holdover assistants, but Harbaugh also brought his Baltimore strength and conditioning coach Ron Shrift with him as the Giants’ new “director of strength and conditioning.” And he added Chris Allen and Brian Ellis as assistants. It will be interesting to see how that crowded staff evolves.