In 5 games, Daboll has changed the way people think about the Giants
NEW YORK — A bald, bearded 47-year-old football lifer, one who has been an offensive coordinator just about everywhere and worked for both Nick Saban and Bill Belichick along the way, is suddenly as big a star as we have right now in New York sports, at a time when we have an awful lot going on around here. That is how well Brian Daboll has done in the first five games he has ever gotten as a head coach. He has shown up and changed the culture around the Giants the way Buck Showalter did with the Mets this season. And really has made himself a very big guy around here, very quickly.
“We talk a lot about process around here,” he said the other day.
But the process we have seen from him just so far, in this season when he has brought his quarterback along the way he has and built the early season around running the ball and defense in an old-school, Bill Parcells way, has brought the Giants to a 4-1 record and what has turned this into a big-game Sunday at MetLife Stadium, Giants against Lamar Jackson and the Ravens.
In a very short time, Daboll has done what coaches are supposed to do: He has identified what his players can do and not fretted about what they can’t. He has not chased the idea of making the Giants something they’re not. He broke in by having his team go for two points at the end to beat the Titans on the road. We can all wonder how the season goes for Daboll and the Giants if they hadn’t converted. But they did convert. Daboll had introduced himself to Giants fans in a loud and, well, very Dabollsy way. What he really did is tell his players he believed in them.
Then we all saw what happened in London last Sunday against the Packers, when the Giants completely dominated the second half. Now they go up against one of the great talents in the sport in Lamar Jackson. But if the Giants can somehow get this game, take a look at the schedule they’ve got coming up between now and their Thanksgiving game in Dallas: At Jaguars.
At Seahawks.
Texans at MetLife.
Lions at MetLife. Nobody, certainly not the coach, is getting ahead of themselves over there in the Meadowlands. Too many bad things have happened to the Giants since Tom Coughlin stopped coaching them. Ben McAdoo had one outlier of a year before he began slipping on banana peels. Then came Pat Shurmur and then came Joe Judge, who had also worked for both Saban and Belichick and who was discussed as some sort of young Lombardi on his way in the door.
But now comes Daboll, who in addition to his stops in New England and Tuscaloosa, was offensive coordinator in Kansas City and Cleveland and Miami before he ended up with Josh Allen in Buffalo, and put his name up in lights, finally, as a legitimate head coaching prospect. Joe Schoen, also out of Buffalo, became Giants general manager. Brought Daboll with him. And just like that, Giants fans have hope again.
The Jets are 3-2 as they get their shot at the Packers on Sunday, at Lambeau. The Mets are out of the playoffs but the Yankees are still alive and the Rangers look like a legit contender already, and here comes the NBA with the Knicks and the Nets. If the Giants aren’t leading the conversation right now, they sure are a very big part of it at 4-1. Maybe people in their building saw this coming. Nobody else did.
Now the Giants are tasked with chasing Lamar Jackson around, a job as big as there is in pro football when Jackson is at his best and looks like a streak of light. But you simply can’t talk about the work the Giants have done so far without talking about the fine work of the head coach. Nobody wins Coach of the Year midway through October. But nearly a third of the way into this, nobody is coaching his team better than Brian Daboll is coaching his.
“I try to be as consistent as I can regardless of results,” Daboll said this week. “Focus on our improving our fundamentals. Be consistent with our preparation and practice habits. Keep taking steps forward.”
The Giants have taken big steps forward just getting to 4-1. They can take a giant step — in all ways — forward if they can beat Baltimore at home.