CLEVELAND — It wasn't Brian Daboll who said, “When the roads cross, pick one.”
But on Sunday against the Browns at Huntington Bank Stadium, Daboll will be faced with an old and familiar crossroads that has stalled out too many recent Giants teams and regimes.
On the road to oblivion, bad things are bound to happen.
A heartbreaking start and a three-run deficit would leave Daboll and the Giants facing the dire scenario of the Cowboys marching into a boiling MetLife Stadium on Thursday night, rather than challenging the Jerry World East.
John Mara has been 0-2, he knows what 0-2 feels like, and he knows where 0-2 can lead.
He knows better than most that around here it can get early and late.
He was 0-2 under Tom Coughlin, 0-2 under Ben McAdoo, 0-2 under Pat Shurmur, 0-2 under Joe Judge and now 0-2 under Brian Daboll.
McAdoo, Shurmur and Judge didn't stick around for a third season. Daboll did.
Mara wasn't ready to offer Daboll a contract extension after the Giants started 2-0 in 2022, and he's not ready to make a short list of managerial candidates for 2025 after finishing 0-2 in 2024. Nor should he be. Not in two weeks.
But for those who believe in what the record says, Daboll has lost 13 of his last 19 games and the Rookie of the Year award seems like a distant memory.
“We are hopeful that we can make significant progress,” Mara said in August.
He is still waiting for that first step to move forward.
Daboll doesn't need to be coach of the year on Sunday, he needs to be the best coach on the day.
Be better than Kevin Stefanski and build a team that is motivated, disciplined, fundamentally strong and refuses to lose.
Otherwise, the hot seat could turn into hell.
This is hardly the start to the franchise's 100th anniversary season Mara had in mind. Another 0-2 start against Sam Darnold and rookie Jayden Daniels. With $60 million man Dak Prescott looming, an 0-3 start against Darnold, Daniels and the ghost of Deshaun Watson would signal to the fanbase that the Big Blue sky is falling again.
At the very least, against Myles Garrett and this talented Browns defense, Daboll can have Greg Joseph kick the PAT or field goal so Daniel Jones won't be burdened with putting the ball in the end zone every time.
There's no way Browns defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz or cornerback Denzel Ward are going to give Malik Neighbors 18 targets, so Daboll will need to get more creative and diverse with his scheme.
You can't kick a team when it's weak, so Daboll assured his players this week:
“We have all the materials we need.”
His predecessors tried desperately to galvanize the Giants, who were 0-2.
Coughlin in 2013:
“I know how the players feel. We are 0-2 and we have been 0-2 before. We have fought hard before. It was all about the 'team' then. But our performance has to be better.”
Coughlin in 2014:
“I believe! I'm a believer! Put me at the top, OK? Put me in charge of the problems, put me at the top in terms of getting this done, and I think they'll get it done.”
Coughlin in 2015:
“We remain positive and will continue to utilize meeting time with positive encouragement. Sooner or later, we have to settle in and play how we're going to play when the game is decided.”
McAdoo in 2017:
“Well, you can't keep doing the same thing over and over again. That's madness. It doesn't work. So I'm going to try and change something up this week, just like I did last week.”
“To use your words, things might get a little more dramatic this week. If it means I relinquish play-calling duties, that's something we'll look at and discuss. As far as personnel goes, in this league, jobs are earned, they're not given, so somebody's got to earn the job or take the job to earn the job.”
Shurmur in 2018:
“We're always looking at everything. I think the key is we stay on track and try to make more plays to make the guys we have better and do what we need to do to win games.”
Shurmur in 2019, before benching Eli Manning for Jones:
“I think we have to look back at how our team played and take steps to improve in all areas. I don't think now is the time to talk about it.”
The 2020 jury:
“What we have to keep in mind is that the NFL is a league of extremes. Every week there are the best teams in the league and there are the worst teams. We're going to stick to our policy of continuing to improve every day, which will lead to week-by-week improvement and hopefully we'll be a better team by the end of the season. That's our goal.”
The 2021 jury:
“I think it's important to talk about the process, and no matter what the outcome is, we really need to look at it objectively and understand what we need to fix and what we're doing well to build on going forward.”
Nightmare scenario for Brian Daboll:
Deja vu all over again.
