Giants hire Bills OC Daboll to fill head coaching vacancy
The New York Giants hired Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll as their head coach Friday.
Daboll, 46, replaces Joe Judge, who was fired two days after the Giants finished a 4-13 season, their fifth straight double-digit losing season.
Daboll spent the previous four seasons as the Bills’ offensive coordinator. He was the first person new general manager Joe Schoen interviewed after Schoen was hired last Friday. Daboll quickly got a second interview on Tuesday.
Schoen was Buffalo’s assistant general manager during Daboll’s tenure. Daboll came to the Bills in 2018 after helping Alabama win its 17th national championship as the Crimson Tide’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
The Giants interviewed six candidates for the vacant position, giving a second interview to Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier earlier Friday. They also spoke to former Dolphins coach Brian Flores; defensive coordinators Lou Anarumo of Cincinnati, Dan Quinn of Dallas and the Giants’ Patrick Graham.
Daboll’s biggest job will be to help quarterback Daniel Jones improve in his fourth season and get one of the NFL’s worst offenses back on track. His immediate job is to assemble a staff that he wants to emphasize teaching and collaboration and put players in position to win.
“That’s why all of us do this,” Daboll said. “To teach, to be successful, to develop talent, and to win. I have a pretty good idea where our fan base’s feelings are right now, and I get it. I promise we will work our tails off to put a team on the field that you will be proud to support and give us the results we all want.”
Daboll’s offense excelled this past season as Buffalo won its second straight AFC East title with quarterback Josh Allen running the show. The Bills finished third in the NFL, averaging 28.4 points, and fifth with 381.9 yards a game. STEELERS GM TO STEP DOWN >> General manager Kevin Colbert, who has spent more than two decades overseeing a roster that’s made the Pittsburgh Steelers perennial contenders, is leaving after the NFL draft this spring.
The 65-year-old Colbert has stuck to a “one season at a time approach” for a while. Team president Art Rooney II said that Colbert wants to move into a more advisory role. The team has already conducted interviews with internal candidates Omar Khan and Brandon Hunt and shortly will turn its eye to candidates outside the organization.
Rooney said the hope is to have Colbert’s successor in place after the draft. The next general manager will have a tall order in replicating Colbert’s success. The Steelers won two Super Bowls and appeared in a third under his watch. They reached the playoffs 14 times since he was hired as director of football operations in 2000.
Colbert will be actively involved in one final draft as the Steelers look to replace quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who retired on Thursday after 18 seasons in Pittsburgh.
The team is also actively searching for a defensive coordinator after Keith Butler retired over the weekend. JONES: QUINN STAYING WITH COWBOYS >> Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said that defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, a candidate for several head coaching jobs, would instead remain in Dallas for “years to come.”
Quinn, the former head coach of the Atlanta Falcons who just completed his first season as the Cowboys DC, had interviewed with the Denver Broncos, Giants, Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings.
Jones went on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas on Friday and reiterated his support for head coach Mike McCarthy after the Cowboys won the NFC East before losing a home playoff game to San Francisco.
“Mike was very involved in this process, and very involved in trying to give us every chance to keep Dan Quinn,” Jones said. “The idea of Mike twisting in the wind just wasn’t the case at all.”
While indicating that Quinn turned down a head coaching offer — “I believe that very much,” Jones said — the owner didn’t offer specifics or any details about a contract extension with the Cowboys.
Jones said it was the third time while owning the team that he was able to persuade a coordinator to stay instead of accepting a head job. Jones mentioned Sean Payton, then an offensive coordinator for head coach Bill Parcells, staying with the Cowboys instead of becoming head coach of the Oakland Raiders, and then-OC Jason Garrett turning down another job to remain in Dallas, where he later became head coach before getting replaced by McCarthy.