November 12th, 2025
By Stephen Juza
Halfway through Brian Daboll's fourth season as the head coach of the New York Giants, the team fired him and turned the reins over to offensive coordinator Mike Kafka. It’s been a consistent downward trajectory for the team after starting with such promise in 2022 with a 9-7-1 season and their first playoff victory since the 2011 Super Bowl. Since that season, the team hasn’t had a .500 record or better in a season since Week 2 of the 2023 season, a 31-28 victory over the Arizona Cardinals.
Today we look at what went wrong in New York during the four seasons, and most specifically during this season. And while you prepare for Week 10, check out https://www.actionnetwork.com/ for all the latest gaming odds.
Quarterback Daniel Jones
By the time that Daboll joined the Giants, there was skepticism if Jones was going to be the franchise quarterback the team had hoped for when they drafted him sixth overall in 2019. Through his first three seasons as a starter, the Giants only won twelve of his thirty seven starts. Things looked so grim that the team declined his fifth year option for the 2023 season.
However, in his first season under Daboll, Jones showed a lot of improvement, posting career highs in passing yards, accuracy, and cut down his interception percentage to a NFL-best 1.1%. This improvement was good enough to come in 11th in the Comeback Player of the Year vote at the end of the season, and hope was high that Daboll had helped fix Jones.
Fresh off the outstanding season, Jones signed a 4-year, $160 million dollar extension with the team. However, in 2023, Jones missed most of the season, only starting six games before tearing his ACL. By the time 2024 had rolled around, Jones would be waived mid-season after ten games.
Giants had hoped that Daboll would be able to get the same type of success out of Jones as he did with Josh Allen when Daboll was the Bill’s offensive coordinator. That never came to fruition, and Jones finally had his major career breakthrough this season with the Indianapolis Colts (8-2).
Running Back Saquon Barkley
The year before the team drafted Jones, the Giants drafted running back Saquon Barkley second-overall. Barkley was explosive right from the beginning of his career, winning Offensive Rookie of the Year after leading the NFL in yards from scrimmage. By the end of the 2023 season, Barkley had worked his way up to fourth all-time on the Giants rushing leaderboard with 5,211 yards.
After the season, Barkley became a free agent and had every intention of remaining with the Giants. However, after the front office felt he wouldn’t get his asking price from another team, they decided to let him test free agency (in a discussion captured during Hard Knocks). The result? He signed with their division rival Philadelphia Eagles and posted one of the best seasons for a running back ever, in a season that culminated in the Eagles winning the Super Bowl.
In a difficult season that followed, players noticed the lack of leadership in the locker room amidst a 3-13 season. While the Giants leadership may have underestimated the impact of Barkley on the team psyche, it falls on the head coach to understand the pulse of his team.
This Season
Entering this season, the feeling around the NFL was that Daboll was a dead man walking. The team signed veteran quarterback Russell Wilson as their starting quarterback this year, and that experiment only lasted three games before the team turned to rookie Jaxson Dart. Dart was drafted in the first round of April’s draft, and while he has been an electric playmaker for the team, he has been evaluated for concussions the last four games.
It’s unclear if Dart will be ready to play this upcoming week or if Kafka will be forced to go back to Wilson. With little to play for this season, the team should plan on letting Dart take it slow coming back to the starting line up. As for Kafka, after nine years in the league, he’s getting his first shot at leading a team. With a strong finish to the season, it could be his job to lose.