There are no perfect candidates, and that applied more than ever to the Giants’ head coach search, which eventually and quite predictably led them to Brian Daboll.
There are no sure things. Check back in two years to see if all the glowing words about Daboll’s great personality and wonderful acumen designing offenses and molding quarterbacks hit the mark or missed badly.
It was only two years ago that Joe Judge, a little-known special teams coordinator in New England, won the room with a stirring press conference introduction that was part Jersey-guy tough, part everyman strong and part no-nonsense promise-keeper. Judge, only 38 at the time, could not have been more impressive in saying hello. Less than two years later, Judge lost his composure in an 11-minute rant in Chicago that served as his goodbye.
Daboll, 46, will be introduced Monday morning inside the Giants’ field house and there is every reason to believe he will hit it out of the park. He has a winning personality and he should come off as prepared and eager to get to work. The goal for the Giants is to not have another one of these introductory media gatherings for a new head coach anytime soon. Every two years is great for a colonoscopy, but not for the rolling out of a new head coach.
The two finalists, Daboll and former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores, were as different as can be. One fit right into the framework the Giants are putting in place, and Daboll must prove he can make the successful leap from coordinator to head coach. The other, Flores, needed to show he has learned from his first turbulent go-round as a head coach in Miami and that he could make the necessary adjustments to get along better with those around him.
The Giants decided the unknown about Daboll was far more palatable than the known about Flores.
Make no mistake, this was Joe Schoen’s hire. Co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch, as always, possess final approval over the hiring of any head coach. Given what has gone down, and gone so very wrong, the past six years — Ben McAdoo to Pat Shurmur to Judge — Mara this time around was thrilled to give the heavy lifting to an outsider. He appointed Schoen, the newly hired, 42-year-old general manager, as the point man for the search and was inclined to listen to what he had to say.
Schoen preferred Daboll, based largely on their four years together in Buffalo, and there was no conceivable way Mara or Tisch would block that preference. Anyway, the narrative that Mara preferred Flores because he had previous head-coaching experience was not entirely accurate.
A head coach is hired to lead the entire team, and thus identifying the best and brightest leader is the way to go. Too often, NFL owners get starry-eyed and mesmerized by a hot coordinator doing great things with a bunch of great players. Take away the great players and that great scheme and all that acumen is revealed as greatness-by-association.
The Giants, more than anything, need someone to resuscitate their sickly offense and breathe life into Daniel Jones, and there is no doubt Daboll was the most attractive candidate out there with the potential to apply salve to the scoring wounds. He will bring his own offense (alas, without Josh Allen) to the Giants and, most likely, he will call the plays his first year on the job. That will not guarantee an immediate offensive renewal, but it will put the Giants one step closer to becoming more competitive as an attack.
Daboll, though, cannot limit his view of the entire field by holding a laminated play-chart in front of his face on the sideline. He has to see all and be all, and that takes great mental capacity when the head coach is also the designer, installer and instigator of the offense. That will be Daboll’s greatest challenge. He is a classic projection, in that he is a well-regarded coordinator and this is his time to see if he can handle a promotion and run his own show.
“Brian was the first candidate we met with when we began our search,’’ Mara said. “And as we continued our conversations, it was clear that his approach to coaching and team building was what we are looking for moving forward with our team.’’
It all sounds good. It almost always sounds good as the ink is drying on the contract and the chairs are being set up for the introduction. Check back later.