It's not entirely unheard of for the Giants to retain head coach Brian Daboll after a two-win season.
But it's close.
The year is 1983. The internet was officially launched, Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers stumbled to a 2-14 record but didn't fire John McKay.
McKay remains the only head coach in the past 46 NFL seasons where a team won two or fewer games in at least his third year.
Will the Giants be able to save Daboll for second place at the end of their disastrous 100th anniversary season?
And, just as importantly, will general manager Joe Schon be retained?
Will Shane be evaluated separately despite joining the Giants at the same time as Daball and working with hand-picked coaches on personnel decisions?
To put the decision facing Giants owner John Mara into context, the Post looked at the 47 teams that have finished 2-14 or worse since the NFL expanded to 16 games in 1978. I investigated.
According to Pro Football Reference, 18 of the 47 were led by head coaches with at least three seasons under their belts, and 26 were led by GMs and lead executives (with no ownership) who had been in the position for at least three years. It is said that there was database.
McKay, who was in his eighth season as the Buccaneers' inaugural head coach in 1983, is the only one of the 18 coaches to survive.
He lasted one more season (6-10) before resigning.
Meanwhile, 10 of the 26 general managers have returned for at least one more season after overseeing a similar train wreck to the Giants. The Giants have lost a franchise-record 10 straight games and face the prospect of finishing 0-9 at home and 2-15 overall. .
So history shows that Shane is likely to stay put…but the caveat is that there are very few instances where it actually proved to be the right decision.
If Mara goes down the path of maintaining front-office continuity through coaching changes, his NFL track record in these spots would align with the Giants' thinking.
This is the first time the Giants will try that route since parting ways with Tom Coughlin in 2016, sticking with Jerry Reese, and giving Dave Gettleman a longer lead than the ousted Pat Shurmur in 2020. This is the third time in 10 years.
Head Coach Career
How many of the 17 coaches fired in Daboll's position got the last laugh, since McKay was the only one given extra patience?
John Fox and Gary Kubiak overcame nightmare endings with the 2010 Panthers and 2013 Texans, respectively, to lead the Broncos to the Super Bowl just two seasons apart.
Fox lost and Kubiak won.
Jim Caldwell, who was fired shortly after going 2-14 in 2011, just two years after leading the Colts to the Super Bowl, had the highest winning percentage of any Lions manager since 1956 before being fired again. continued.
These are the three strongest arguments that a mistake was made.
Other notable players who were not saved include two-time Super Bowl champion George Seifert, who lost his first season with the 49ers in 2001 when the Panthers went 1-15 in his third year as manager. The championship pedigree didn't help.
New Yorkers will recognize the names of former Jets head coaches Herm Edwards (who went 2-14 with the Chiefs in 2008) and Steve Spagnuolo.
Spagnuolo served as the Giants' defensive coordinator before and after his tenure with the Rams, which finished with a 2-14 record in 2011, his third season.
He went 1-3 as the Giants' interim head coach in 2017.
General manager career
First, four general managers who are also team owners were excluded from the 26-team study.
Of the 16 GMs who didn't return, none gave their former teams any regrets, but one was a Hall of Famer. Bobby Bearshard, who coached two Super Bowl champions in Washington in the 1980s, retired after a 1-15 season. Along with the 2000 Charger.
Former 49ers GM Trent Baalke has been in the spotlight with the Jaguars since this season ended, but he is the only one of the 16 to even get a chance to shoot since then.
This is troubling (to say the least) for the argument to keep Mr. Schoen.
Of the 10 cases in which GMs were put on probation, McKay's right-hand man Phil Krueger accounted for three in 1983, 1985, and 1986, but strictly speaking, until 1991, the head coach had the opposite power structure. It was in accordance with
Of the remaining seven teams, four made the obvious mistake of sticking with the status quo and ended up making changes within the next two years anyway.
This case is a little trickier with three cases. Russ Thomas overcame a 2-14 season in 1979 and led the Lions to the playoffs twice, but he ended up going 54-81-1 for the remainder of his tenure. Rick Smith oversaw the Texans' bounce back from 2-14 in 2013 to 9-7 for the third year in a row, then retired after hitting rock bottom again. Rudd Herzog ended his tenure with the Oilers after five consecutive seasons of winning five or fewer games, but a long rebuild ultimately led to a third consecutive playoff appearance.
If history is any indication, that's the level of upside the Giants can expect if all or parts of this system remain intact in Year 4.
