New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll talks to reporters before mandatory minicamp at the Giants training center in East Rutherford on Tuesday, June 13, 2023.
Syndication: The Record
(East Rutherford, NJ) – As the New York Giants season sputtered and circled the drain in 2023, fans started to worry.
Would head coach Brian Daboll be canned amid another lost season? Were the Giants about to enter the head coach carousel yet again?
The hope was that wouldn’t happen, given how the Giants have had to play musical chairs – going from Tom Coughlin, to Ben McAdoo, to Pat Shurmur, then Joe Judge, now Daboll, in a short amount of time. And the Giants – thankfully – righted their season, staving off those firing rumors. Big Blue even entered the offseason on a high note, beating the NFC East rival Philadelphia Eagles.
Yet those good vibes hardly lasted, fueled by nagging rumors suggesting Daboll and since-resigned defensive coordinator Wink Martindale weren’t getting along. Martindale stepping down in bizarre fashion – amid rumors he “cursed out” Daboll, served to only further suggest chaos was ruling on the Giants-side of MetLife Stadium. Now, a tell-all from New York Daily News writer Pat Leonard paints Daboll as an out-of-control, rage filled maniac.
Leonard’s piece, published Monday as the NFL landscape was focused on the Wild Card round of the playoffs, says Daboll routinely rips into his coaches on the in-game headset. Unfortunately, it’s hard to know if that’s unique, given TV cameras have captured many coaches yelling on the sidelines during games.
But Leonard says a source told him Daboll “has no composure.” One coach reportedly told a colleague with another organization “do not come here.” And, of course, the article included the proverbial mention of how this year’s team struggled – while last year’s team did not. A player apparently told Leonard “last season it was like we were riding a wave. And now, we’re off the wave.”
The piece also gets into the fractured relationship between Daboll and Martindale, as the head coach apparently blamed “Wink” for the loss against the Jets in late October. Daboll was also routinely unhappy with the offense under coordinator Mike Kafka.
Leonard’s piece includes a lot of anonymous quotes that paint a picture of a team that went 6-11 after making the playoffs a year before. A year in which Daboll – checks notes – won Coach of the Year. Yeah, but what has that done for Pat Leonard lately?
