It’s safe to say that 2023 was a perfect storm for the New York Giants and just about everything that could go wrong, did.
Calculated risks in personnel blew up in the front office’s collective face, key players suffered significant injuries, and the rest of the NFL seemingly caught up with the Giants’ schemes. For the most part, all of that came to a close on January 7th with the final game of the season.
But only then did the simmering tensions behind the scenes boil over into public view.
Jordan Raanan of ESPN wrote Thursday morning about how Brian Daboll’s new staff is working to put that behind them and rebuild for 2024.
I would encourage everyone to read Raanan’s piece in full. It has some fascinating reporting, with context and nuance that we haven’t previously seen.
Over the course of the piece, Raanan drops a few interesting nuggets.
Perhaps the biggest for 2024 is on the offense, and in particular, who will be calling the plays. Raanan notes that offensive coordinator, and new assistant head coach, Mike Kafka has seemingly lost his play calling duties despite his promotion.
We also gain some insight into just how wide-spread tensions grew during the Daboll – Martindale schism. At the time, the story we were presented featured Wink Martindale building a private fiefdom on the defense and attempting to undermine Daboll as head coach. However Raanan hints that even coaches on the offense or special teams were uncomfortable with the situation behind the scenes.
Raanan quotes one coach who said that Daboll’s mid-game outbursts kept the rest of the coaching staff from doing their jobs. He reports multiple sources as saying that the staff on both sides of the ball grew weary of Daboll’s outbursts and finger-pointing, with one saying that it didn’t feel as though they were all on the same team.
He also quotes yet another coach (who he notes isn’t on the defensive side of the ball) as saying, “We were all trying to get out of there.”
The Giants have since made a number of changes, including on the coaching staff. There are 11 new coaches this year, including new defensive and special teams coordinators. Raanan reports that players are saying that Daboll is more calm, and Daboll has praised the communication among the staff.
Raanan also notes that coaches are working together in ways in which they hadn’t been previously. Kafka is saying the right things in public, that he’s trying to do anything he can to complement Daboll and help the players.
Raptor’s thoughts
More than anything else, the course of 2024 could be determined by how Daboll handles relationships and chemistry behind the scenes.
As much as we’ve discussed and analyzed the players on the roster, whether Brian Daboll is able to keep a level head and hold things together behind the scenes will be incredibly important.
The Giants have had a lot of coaching turnover since the end of the 2023-2024 season — which is jarring in and of itself, considering that the coaching staff was the strength of the 2022 team. But it wasn’t a complete overhaul of the coaching staff, and things need (or needed) to be repaired with the coaches who remained. It can be tough to move on once relationships are damaged and trust is breached. It takes time and effort to mend those fences, and sometimes the scars can persist.
January of 2024 feels like about half a lifetime ago, but it was only six months. Daboll, and the Giants, are saying a lot of the right things. Raanan writes about how they’re making efforts to be collaborative, open, and accountable behind the scenes.
But it’s also (relatively) easy to sail calm seas.
The Giants will face adversity this year, and they can’t allow old hurts, grievances, and grudges to rear their ugly heads when it does.
Whether its due to injury, the ball bouncing the other way, or just plain being out-played, adversity is going to happen. Even in 2022, when seemingly everything broke the Giants’ way, there was still adversity. The stakes are always high in the NFL, but right now things aren’t particularly stressful.
That’s going to change in about two months.
The season could well hinge on how Daboll maintains his composure and the cohesion in the coaching staff as well as in the locker room. The play on the field will get all the attention, but the dynamics behind the scenes could be just as important.
Copyright © 2024
Leave a Reply