Giants fire head coach Brian Daboll after Bears collapse and Jaxson Dart concussion

Pat Leonard, New York Daily News on Nov 10, 2025

Published in Football

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CHICAGO — The New York Giants fired head coach Brian Daboll Monday morning, a source confirmed to the New York Daily News, in a change that was at least a year overdue.

Daboll was dismissed after the Giants collapsed again and rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart suffered a concussion in Sunday’s 24-20 loss to the Chicago Bears.

The loss set a new franchise record with 11 consecutive road defeats dating back to Oct. 2024. It marked the fourth time this season that the Giants led a game by double digits and lost.

And the NFL and the Giants both mishandled Dart’s concussion.

He slammed his head to the turf when he fumbled the ball late in the third quarter and laid motionless as the Bears scrambled for the loose ball, but he was allowed to go back into the game and take two more snaps on the Giants’ next series before being removed for evaluation.

Offensive coordinator Mike Kafka will take over as the interim head coach for the flailing team’s final seven games.

“The past few seasons have been nothing short of disappointing, and we have not met our expectations for this franchise,” co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch said in a joint statement. “We understand the frustrations of our fans, and we will work to deliver a significantly improved product.”

On GM Joe Schoen and Daboll’s watch, the Giants are 2-8 for a third consecutive season. They have a 3-19 record in their last 22 games, a 5-22 record in their last 27 games, a 5-17-1 record against NFC East opponents, a 2-14-0 record against the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys and a 20-40-1 overall record (.336) in their four regular seasons.

Mara and Tisch retained Schoen and Daboll in January despite a 3-14 record in 2024, their third full season running the team.

Mara was trying to prioritize stability after firing three consecutive coaches either during or after their second season running the team: Ben McAdoo (13-15, .464), Pat Shurmur (9-23, .281) and Joe Judge (10-23, .303).

But consistency means nothing for an organization if the leaders it retains are bad at their jobs in the first place.

Last January’s autopsy of the 2024 season changed Schoen’s and Daboll’s relationship permanently.

The pair that arrived together from Buffalo in 2022 always had preached a “collaborative” dynamic in a veiled shot at previous GM Dave Gettleman and Judge. But once it was time to take accountability, Daboll could sense that Schoen was saying “me” a lot more often than “we.”

The writing was on the wall that when judgment day came, Daboll, the 2022 NFL Coach of the Year, would be the one to walk the plank. And Schoen would remain on the ship.

And that’s exactly what happened on Monday when the Giants snuck a line into a press release that “Schoen remains in his position as general manager and will lead the search for a new head coach.”

Firing Daboll does not cure the Giants’ problems, though. It should only be the beginning.

Ownership and Schoen, after all, hired Daboll and then stood behind him as Daboll’s mismanagement of his staff led defensive coordinator Wink Martindale to resign after the 2023 season — not to mention the scapegoating and firing of quality assistants such as Drew and Kevin Wilkins, Jerome Henderson and Mike Treier.

Martindale’s resignation robbed the Giants of the best coach in their building. It also shed an important light on how much of the team’s 2022 playoff berth was due to savvy game management influenced by their experienced DC’s timely calls and understanding of situational football.

The Giants have a 5-22 record, a pathetic .185 winning percentage, since Martindale left for the University of Michigan.

Schoen, meanwhile, let Saquon Barkley sign with the rival Eagles to win Offensive Player of the Year and a Super Bowl. He blamed Daniel Jones for the Giants’ 2024 losing and now is staring at Jones and the Indianapolis Colts (8-2) at the top of the entire NFL’s standings.

All-Pro safety Xavier McKinney is about to strut back into New Jersey on Sunday and take over MetLife Stadium with the Green Bay Packers.

Schoen’s roster mismanagement didn’t just rob the team of good players, either. It also zapped the locker room of its leadership. And the team culturally has never recovered.

Schoen also is the one who signed Russell Wilson thinking the veteran quarterback would be an obvious upgrade over Jones.

If the Giants have upgraded anywhere on his watch, it’s largely because the team has lost so many games that they always have high draft picks.

The coming weeks will be a deluge from the national media — the same people who broke the news of Daboll’s hiring, noticeably — about why this front office deserves saving even though the coach didn’t know how to win games.

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