Bad Luck, Patience, and Cause for Hope (Long)

This post may be mostly for myself just to sort through the BS I tell myself vs logic, but I’ll start with a plea to fellow Giants fans: Let’s try to be patient.

I’ll speak for myself, I was enamored with the potential of getting Drake Maye with Daboll. Maye’s been my guy since before the season ended, over CW, over Jayden. If we had the first pick and I was the GM, we wouldn’t have gotten to the draft before having him in the fold, signed rookie contract, done deal, case closed. I’m past the point of debating whether or not the kid will succeed, just providing color.

When the draft order fell the way it did, I was at a fever pitch with being a Giants fan, fucking livid. I was pissed that we beat 2 of the 3 teams picking ahead of us 3 times total, in the back half of the season, I was pissed at Giants fans who chastised me during the season when we won meaningless games, I was pissed at Kid Cutlets and his dumb agent, I was pissed that I had to pretend that I thought being from NJ was cool (sorry). I was pissed with fans that defended Wink, turned on Daboll, just to find out that Wink was a traitorous piece of shit, and he achieved exactly what he set out to do: spun the story on Daboll while trying to preserve his rep, and subverted his first time HC. There’s still a contingent of fans who think Daboll as trash because of all that, which is wild. The writing was on the wall, Dabs is getting canned before he ever gets a shot with his own QB.

But hope springs eternal. Out of nowhere, buzz starts that NE might trade out of that spot. Suddenly, I’m more invested in this draft process than I have been in 20 years. And this week the buzz gets louder, hours before the draft we’ve got insiders saying “we’re picking 3rd” and somehow, I bite. I forgot my entire Irish Catholic upbringing, and I believed that something good would happen.

And now we’re here. I’m not mad anymore, just bummed. If we’re being honest with ourselves, we know that, save for a miracle of Brady-level proportions, we’re going to be here for at minimum, 2 more years. And that sucks. Swap Barkley for Nabers and we’re back where we’ve been at. Hopefully the line improves, and I think it should. The DL has a shot at being elite, which may numb some of the bad feelings. Realistically, we could field a pretty good team, but the QB situation won’t be addressed in any way that matters until 2026. If you’re still saying “we don’t need to draft a QB,” I don’t have much for you. But if you’re bummed like I am, or pissed, like I was, here’s what I do have…

What I’ve found in the past few years since the Eli Billboard era, is that Mara is easily influenced by the fans, and that is not a good thing. We’ve seen the Giants get some bad breaks over the past few years, some bad decisions, but those have been compounded by a very loud, very impatient fanbase.

Are we right to feel pissed and embarrassed? Absolutely. I still joke with my buddies that it feels like Coughlin used his Irish sea witch powers and put a curse on Mara by shunning the handshake at that sham “retirement” presser. And despite him deserving it, the fans are the ones who paid. But I keep getting back to this place of, “What’s in our control?” From a fans standpoint? Not much, short of getting very loud and very impatient. We’ve seen the results, we’ve seen Mara buckle to fan and media pressure. Since Coughlin, we’ve seen 4 head coaches and 3 GMs. In fairness, 3 of the former and 2 of the latter earned their pink slips. But what I’ve also seen, from both Schoen and Daboll, is much different. There’s a level of maturity, forethought, and strategy I haven’t seen from the prior guys who were in their shoes. They all seemed ill fit for the job, and one ill fit for his suit. But these 2 seem to get it. And what some may consider the biggest mistake, the albatross of the Daniel Jones contract, I consider the proof.

Again, “What’s in our control?” From a NYG decision makers standpoint? Well let’s review. Schoen comes in, doesn’t pick up DJ’s 5th year and hires Daboll. Obviously, in part, because of familiarity, but also because he understands that we gotta get the QB. Flatly, I don’t think there’s another guy in the league, save for maybe Greg Roman, I’d want at the helm with that being the mission statement. This is further supported by the bridge gap contract he gives Tyrod. So Daboll comes in, and Daboll does his job, and he does it well. So well, in fact, that the Giants do things they haven’t done in a decade: playoff berth, playoff win! Daboll wins Coach of the Year! Saquon looks like Saquon again! And Daniel Jones doesn’t look half bad in the process. The franchise is saved!

Reality is that we had an incredibly, uncharacteristically, soft schedule, and had a few things break our way on a micro level, which on a macro level put us in a precarious situation. Schoen is now staring at the lay of the land in the ‘23 offseason and considering the season they just had, with a roster still bereft of talent, and having a draft pick in the back 3rd of the first round… “What’s in our control?” Move off the Saquon/DJ offensive nucleus? In favor of what? We can question the way that was handled all day, but here’s the truth: Saquon wasn’t signing a deal that made him expendable in 2 years, - given the shelf life of RBs, Barkley’s window for guaranteed money and a long term second contract, a one year deal with some guarantee was the best move for both - and despite the optics of DJ’s contract, he did. There wasn’t a better path forward, we weren’t gonna trade up for a QB at the expense of the roster, and we weren’t going to cut ties with DJ and Saquon because at the end of the day, Schoen’s job is to field a football team that can win, and Daboll’s is to coach it. If they don’t do that, they lose their jobs.

That said, the mission statement was still, find the QB and build the roster. Even looking at the ‘23 draft, you can see it. Banks, best corner in the draft, but at a position that inherently takes time to develop. JMS, stud, immediate need no matter who he’s snapping to. Hyatt, incredible talent, but a project. They weren’t building around DJ, they didn’t shift gears into “win now” mode because of luck, or fear of losing their jobs, or some of the other bullshit decision making we’ve seen in recent years. They stayed the course. They were picking guys that will be good, but without a timing and pressure sense to it. Hyatt and Banks come online in ‘24, doesn’t matter who the QB is, JMS gives a unit that lacks consistency an anchor inside. But we don’t mortgage the future because, realistically, we’re still a couple years away.

‘23 season comes along and the wheels fall the fuck off. Every starter on the OL gets injured at one point, a couple of their back ups do too, Saquon goes down, DJ looks like David Carr redux, he goes down, his back-up maybe repunctures his lung? Wink is a 50 year old man thinking about his post-Giants career and has too much pride to be told not to blitz against Dallas, or get yelled at, and shit starts to look bleak. But maybe, just maybe, we finally get into position to get the QB. And we still have a QB on a gaudy-but-manageable contract.

Which leads us to the past few months, and the culmination last night. And again, “What can we control?” I think there’s a lot to like about leading up to, and what happened, last night, and maybe this is just copium on my part but:

First let’s address the process. Schoen said something to the affect of, “You can watch tape, you can watch games, but you gotta get your hands on these guys. You gotta work with ‘em.” The exact wording eludes me at the moment, but he did just that. He certainly didn’t fall in “full bloom love” with any of them over a game. He identified 3 top tier guys. He then identified 3 second tier guys who have major, major “what ifs.”

Second, let’s address what didn’t happen. We didn’t get Maye. For all intents and purposes, he was the guy. I don’t think Mara kiboshed it because of cost. I also don’t think Schoen balked. Both of those things should instill hope. QB is the most important position on the field, and it’s not close. You want to win a Super Bowl? There is no other option than get a great QB. The only 2 QBs over the past 20 years who’ve won a ring and won’t be considered for the hall are Flacco and Big Dick Nick.

This is conjecture on my part, but it seems like the exploration of trades was friction from within NE front office. One party may have wanted the other to do their due diligence on a trade because they liked another prospect, the other party was always going to ask too much because in truth, they didn’t want to move off their spot. They put the pick in at 5 minutes to make a statement: this was always the plan. Which was out of their control.

So lastly, the pick. Malik Nabers is a beast. As disappointed as I am that we don’t get to see a new era of Giants football, Nabers is game changing talent, and can fill the void left behind by Saquon. But most importantly, they didn’t panic. They stuck to the script. It’s clear that they did not see the value that some seem to in either JJM, or Penix, or Nix. 6 QBs in the top 12 is unheard of. And as a team who is dealing with the fallout of picking a guy like 3 chosen after us, thank god we didn’t take one.

I said it along the way, I’d be content with JJM if this staff had high marks on him, but I also didn’t see it. Penix? You have to be out of your fucking mind to realistically consider him. Oft injured QB for an oft injured QB? And Nix doesn’t have the arm to do what Daboll wants. So they stayed the course. Which was within their control.

So where do we go from here? Well, I don’t buy that we “like” DJ as anything other than a person, but he’s what we have, so we continue to get talent. 2025 looks like it’s gonna be a rough year to need a QB. So we continue to get talent. And we become patient.

I’ve seen a lot of people reference trading future picks to trade up as crippling the franchise, but what cripples the franchise more is impatience. Flipping the FO and coaching staff. Because being 2 years out becomes 5 years, and that’s 2 more hires we could get wrong, which becomes 10. It’s slamming the table for results despite an honest look at where we’re at.

On a personal level, I’ve made some huge errors in my life, and someone once told me, “As far as we go into the forest, we have to come out.” Well the Giants have been wandering in the forest for 12-13 years. And we can point to “parody,” but the out of nowhere teams don’t find sustained success. The Bengals never built Burrow an OL and he’s gotten his leg torn up. Herbert - no OL, and they’re picking ahead of us with a new HC and FO. But teams like Philly, like SF, like KC, like the Bills, who have sustained success, built the infrastructure, and struck when they could for THE QB.

It sucks that it wasn’t this year. It sucks that maybe, we saw the guy, and we just couldn’t do enough to get him. It sucks that DJ isn’t going to take us to the promised land, and we’re probably 2 years away from “the guy,” and that’s what we’re left with. But, for the first time in a long time, it wasn’t because of some egregious error by the guys at the helm. And the hope-shot is that those guys didn’t compound the loss by making an egregious error to counteract and please the masses. They didn’t get caught flatfooted. I just hope that, as a fanbase, we can just accept that it is what it is, and not start calling for Schoen and Daboll’s heads to roll, not get discouraged when we’re mediocre again next year (at best). For the first time since Coughlin, this organizations seems to be doing the right thing, making the smart but hard decisions. And frankly, I don’t think I could stomach Daboll winning a Super Bowl with another team, ‘cause he’s got the chops. I truly believe that if we never put him in a position to work with HIS QB, it will be up there with the ‘08 season as far as “What Ifs” go. So, yea. Let’s try to be patient.