From 'Hard Knocks' to hard to watch: Inside the Giants' 2024 unraveling
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Jordan Raanan, ESPN Staff Writer
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Less than 24 hours after an embarrassing blowout loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, New York Giants‘ third-year head coach Brian Daboll was in cleanup mode.
The Giants were working on a short week with a Thanksgiving matchup against the Dallas Cowboys on deck. Despite a condensed schedule and minimal time to prepare, Daboll spent his Monday film session with players trying to convince them they were wrong to say their effort was “soft” and lacked overall commitment in a season spiraling out of control after a 31-7 demolition at home to the Bucs.
Daboll showed a dozen or so plays and asked if the players saw a lack of effort. They seemed to agree it was more a lack of execution.
“More than anything, it was kind of highlighting the fact that there was a lot of good effort,” starting linebacker Micah McFadden said on a conference call with reporters the day after that loss.
It was an unusual approach. The result against the Bucs was even more disconcerting coming off their bye week, days after general manager Joe Schoen said the team he built was “not far off.”
The abbreviated film session was different from most in that several players said it seemed Daboll was more concerned about messaging than preparing for the Cowboys. It surprised more than a few of them.
“It was like, ‘What are we doing here?'” one player said.
Three days later, the Giants trailed by 17 points in the fourth quarter against the Cowboys before losing 27-20. They added a loss to the Saints and two more blowout defeats against the Ravens and Falcons before snapping a franchise-record 10-game skid in Week 17 with a win over the Indianapolis Colts. The Giants went 89 days between victories during their centennial season and had planes fly over the stadium with banners that implored ownership to “fire everybody” and “plz fix this dumpster fire.” Undoubtedly not what ownership envisioned from what was supposed to be a celebratory 100th season.
A plane with this message for Giants ownership is flying over the stadium hours before they play the Saints: “Mr. Mara Enough – Plz Fix this Dumpster Fire.” pic.twitter.com/7DOUsGof1z
— Jordan Raanan (@JordanRaanan) December 8, 2024
If it could go wrong for the Giants this season, it did. They got blown out in the opener and the opposing coach said his team was “more prepared,” benched and cut starting quarterback Daniel Jones, bypassed backup quarterback (Drew Lock) for the third-stringer (Tommy DeVito) only to eventually go back to Lock, botched the kicker situation for a second straight year in a Week 2 loss to Washington and twice failed to bench second-year cornerback Deonte Banks despite questionable effort. The Giants (3-14) finished tied for the worst record in the league.
That’s not to mention former Giant and star running back Saquon Barkley leaving in the offseason (for all the world to see on HBO’s “Hard Knocks”) and becoming “2K-Sa” for the rival Philadelphia Eagles. Barkley became the ninth player in NFL history to rush for over 2,000 yards in a season.
Twenty players and coaches spoke to ESPN about one of the worst seasons in franchise history. Insecurity, lack of accountability, conviction and veteran leadership in the locker room were some of the reasons pinpointed by those who took stock of what went wrong.
This kind of calamity left those on the outside (and inside) wondering whether Schoen and Daboll should be the ones making the decision about the next quarterback, or anything else in the organization. Owner John Mara said earlier in the fall that his coach and GM weren’t going anywhere and the Giants didn’t “anticipate” changes. But that was before they lost eight more games in a row.
In the end, Mara and Giants ownership decided to run it back, citing Daboll’s status as 2022’s coach of the year to point to his leadership ability. Schoen delivered a promising draft class last year, built a strong staff, did well in free agency and, Mara said, the information they were using to make personnel decisions was the best he had seen.
“We came to the decision that staying with both of them is the best course of action for us right now,” Mara said.
Even if the Giants won just three games.
THE MESSAGE PUSHED by the staff to players throughout the season was to learn how to finish games. The little details that seemed to be the difference in Daboll’s first year — when he was named coach of the year and the Giants won their first and only playoff game since Super Bowl XLVI — became a weakness. New York led the league with nine illegal shift penalties in 2024. Rookie wide receiver Malik Nabers committed five, more than 28 other teams.
The Giants were 1-7 in one-score games — an inability to finish was something Schoen cited at the bye — and the team never won another close one.
If only they could have gotten better quarterback play. Daboll suggested that was necessary for his 31st-ranked scoring offense to be more effective.
“If you get good quarterback play, you have an opportunity in every game,” he said after a Week 17 win over the Colts.
Mara agreed this week that acquiring a quarterback is the organization’s top priority. He also mentioned the defense allowing opposing teams to drive up and down the field seamlessly and the offensive line depth as other reasons for the Giants’ recent failures.
“That’s obviously the No. 1 issue for us going into this offseason is to find our quarterback of the future, whether that be via the draft or acquire a veteran,” Mara said.
The problems can be traced to the offseason, when the team’s brass was publicly searching for Jones’ replacement, captured on HBO’s “Hard Knocks.” Wide receiver Darius Slayton compared the team’s relationship with Jones to a contentious marriage. But once it was broadcast publicly, teammates and fans not only became aware but kept notice.
“It becomes a bigger monster,” Slayton said of the public scrutiny.
It created what several players characterized as an awkward vibe between Daboll and Jones. It could be seen and heard in Jones’ public comments, especially when he said, “Ask Dabs,” a deflection that was very unusual for Jones. The quarterback had rarely shown emotion off the field and in his interactions with the media during his six years as the starter.
With this season’s setup, Jones, coming off a torn right ACL, never returned to his 2022 form and didn’t live up to his $160 million contract.
“I don’t think DJ was the most confident back there to start the year, whether that had to do with his knee or just overall confidence,” wide receiver Wan’Dale Robinson said.
The season started going wrong because of the failings at quarterback, even with Daboll taking over as playcaller for the first time. Jones, Lock and DeVito combined for a team QBR of 45.0, good for 28th in the NFL. Mara and Daboll said they brought up the topic of playcalling during their extended meeting last Friday and will contemplate whether Daboll continues in that role.
“We stunk this year,” Mara said. “The results on the field were not what we wanted them to be. There were a number of factors that went into that. A lot of that has already been discussed with the coach and with Joe (Schoen) and will continue to be discussed.”
PLAYERS THOUGHT THE team’s brass greatly underestimated Barkley’s value in the locker room. “Definitely a ton,” DeVito said. Teammates give Barkley credit for keeping the Giants from fracturing the previous season after starting 2-8. Players also belabored that injuries were among the biggest factors of the Giants’ struggles, specifically losing left tackle Andrew Thomas. He suffered a season-ending foot injury in a Week 6 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, with the Giants already 2-4.
“You can replace a receiver, you can replace a running back, you can’t replace your left tackle,” Slayton said.
The Giants lost Thomas to injury the previous season and watched the offense average 11.8 points per game over the first 10 weeks.
This year, the Giants came in with a backup plan in third-year lineman Joshua Ezeudu, the same player who had failed miserably in a similar spot the previous season before an injury prematurely ended the experiment. Ezeudu had a 79.2% pass block win rate while filling in for Thomas during five starts in 2023. That win rate would have been the third worst of any tackle had he played enough to qualify.
Instead of upgrading the backup tackle, the Giants chose to run it back with former first-round pick Evan Neal, who was rehabbing from ankle surgery, and Ezeudu, who was looked at by most teams as a guard coming out of North Carolina in 2022. Ezeudu had competed for a starting guard job the following year before being thrown in at left tackle when Thomas was injured in the 2023 opener.
The Giants seemed convinced Ezeudu was primarily a tackle and played him there all spring and summer. When Thomas went down, it was Ezeudu who started the next game in a blowout loss to the Philadelphia Eagles and struggled in the first half. He played better in the second half, but the Giants quickly pivoted and benched him the following week for Chris Hubbard, a veteran who also wasn’t a natural left tackle and had been claimed off the 49ers’ practice squad 10 days earlier.
None of it worked. The Giants moved Ezeudu back to guard in Week 18.
“It’s like they make moves off Twitter,” a league source with knowledge of the Giants’ inner workings told ESPN.
Meanwhile, the Ezeudu/left tackle situation was a puzzling combination of flawed planning and lack of conviction for the Giants. After months of insisting Ezeudu was a tackle, they moved Jermaine Eluemunor from right to left tackle and had enough confidence to insert Neal back into the lineup. Ezeudu went to the bench and mostly watched, even when the Giants started Tyre Phillips at right tackle. Phillips was signed before Thanksgiving.
If that were the only decision that lacked conviction, it might have been palatable for the locker room. But it wasn’t.
The Giants passed over Lock, the clear-cut No. 2 quarterback for the first 10 weeks of the season, in favor of DeVito heading into the game against the Bucs. The Giants switched quarterbacks (in part because of injury) three more times before all was said and done.
“That was definitely something we didn’t know what was going on at that point,” Robinson said. “But above our pay grade.”
It speaks to a bigger problem that was conveyed to ESPN by the players and coaches interviewed. There was a lack of trust between the team and players — one defensive player went so far as to describe it as “distrust.” It’s an issue Schoen and Daboll will have to mend as they move forward.
The catalyst was a gap in communication. More than a handful of players spoke of being misled and left to dangle in the wind on issues, including their roles changing or snaps dwindling, without sufficient explanation.
It started early. Defensive back Isaiah Simmons admitted it was “shocking” and “confusing” he didn’t play a defensive snap in Week 1. Simmons re-signed with the Giants in the offseason because he thought there was a role for him in the defense. There was even a scene in “Hard Knocks” to document the lofty plans they had for Simmons as a first- and second-down nickelback and third-down moneybacker. That never materialized throughout the season. He played 16.1% of the defensive snaps after 33.5% the previous year.
“All you want in this league is the truth,” an offensive player said of the communication.
“When we needed [those players], they were checked out,” one defensive player said, not specifically about Simmons but about those who felt alienated.
Several players spoke of the inability to get a straight answer from the coach or GM and that affected their confidence and ultimately their ability to perform.
“Makes you wonder: Do they believe in me? Do they trust me?” another offensive player added.
THE LACK OF trust worsened as the season progressed, according to several players, and the losses continued. One situation several players mentioned was how the team dealt with cornerback Nick McCloud.
Before the start of a Week 4 game against the Cowboys, the Giants wanted McCloud to take a pay cut from the one-year, $2.98 million deal he signed as a restricted free agent in the offseason, according to a player source. McCloud wanted to remain with the Giants, but on his current deal. Asking him to take a pay cut during the season, before a game he was set to start, was bold and unusual, according to multiple executives around the league.
According to multiple Giants players, Schoen told McCloud’s representatives, “Don’t pay October’s rent, all right? As soon as I can replace him, I’m going to replace him. I’m not f****** around.”
The Giants general manager hung up the phone.
McCloud started four more games for the Giants before being released Nov. 5. He signed to the San Francisco 49ers‘ practice squad the following week and quickly worked his way onto their active roster.
The situation affected the vibe in the Giants’ locker room. McCloud was a well-liked player, his locker was between offseason acquisition Brian Burns and Slayton. He was close with both respected veterans.
Schoen said during the bye week he didn’t believe he was alienating the players by his handling of difficult moves. It came on the heels of Barkley and safety Xavier McKinney not being re-signed in the offseason. Perhaps if the Giants were winning, it could have been excused. But they weren’t. By the time McCloud was released, the Giants were 2-7 and the season was spinning out of control. Five more losses followed.
A few days before McCloud was cut, Banks was benched in a loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. It was a move that was a long time coming, according to several players. Banks, the team’s 2023 first-round pick, already had two highly publicized incidents that exhibited a lack of effort. The locker room was watching it all unfold, which made the eventual benching predictable.
“You can’t let certain people get away with certain things. It was happening too much, for sure,” one player said.
It spoke to an overall lack of accountability, several players said. That seemed to match what Eluemunor said after that loss to the Bucs when he mentioned guys “not giving everything they have” — before Daboll tried to convince the team otherwise.
When asked about players mentioning an accountability issue at his season-ending news conference, Daboll didn’t object to the premise or give a defense.
“I would say everything has got to be better when you win three games,” he said.
THE 2024 SEASON will go down as one of the worst in Giants history. Their .176 win percentage was the fourth lowest in franchise history. It marked the second straight year the Schoen and Daboll program went in the wrong direction.
From the playoffs in Year 1 to 6-11 with coaching staff problems in Year 2 to three wins in Year 3.
Just about everybody involved with the New York Football Giants has been left shaking their heads heading into Year 4.
“Our season, there is a lot I didn’t quite understand,” Simmons said.
Now, the Giants have to figure out how to turn it around.
Multiple players said they were “surprised” Daboll was retained. Some said they were fine with the decision, in part, because he’s a player-friendly coach — open to feedback and incorporates a favorable schedule that hardly wore them down. Daboll’s program is known to be heavy on off days and meetings don’t start that early (8:30 a.m.). The players seem to like Daboll, the person, even though they see signs his program is not destined for success.
“It’s like your only option is to blindly trust,” an offensive player said.
It has been a rough dozen seasons for the Giants, with two playoff appearances and one playoff win during that span.
“It’s a lot of young guys that we were depending on,” Burns said. “So with them having another year of experience under their belt, I feel like they’ll be more sound, more pro-ready. And other than that, just like I said, the details and everything that falls under that umbrella. So they got some things to do. They got another draft coming up. Big draft coming up.”
The Giants will pick third in the 2025 NFL draft, behind the Tennessee Titans and Cleveland Browns.
The onus will be on Schoen and Daboll to get this right and find their next quarterback, a responsibility that will go a long way in determining the future of this franchise. But first, they must figure out how this year went so sideways.
“I can’t really put my finger on one exact thing,” Thomas said. “Everyone is putting a lot of work in, and it’s frustrating when you don’t have the results that you want. But all you can do is go back to the drawing board.”
