New York Giants head coach Brain Daboll isn’t fazed by the success he achieved in his first year at the helm in East Rutherford.
All he did was stem the tide of five straight losing seasons by qualifying for the playoffs and also leading the franchise to its first postseason victory since Super Bowl XLVI in 2012.
Daboll was named NFL Coach of the Year for his efforts but isn’t resting on his laurels.
“Got smoked in the playoffs,” Daboll said, referring to the Giants’ crushing 38-7 divisional-round loss to the Eagles in Philadelphia.
Let’s not forget that Daboll has reached the heights of the coaching profession on several levels. He was a three-time Super Bowl champion as one of Bill Belichick’s assistants with the New England Patriots and also won an NCAA title at Alabama as Nick Saban’s offensive coordinator.
Daboll knows what his team has to do to get to the next level. While general manager Joe Schoen assembles and adds to his roster, he must start from scratch and try to get back to the postseason and go further than last year.
“It starts all over,” Daboll said. “I don’t get that far down the road. Just focus on today. Try to get better at the things we can get better at. We have a long way to go in terms of time, and we have a long way to go in terms of improvement.
“You all know this: What you do one year has no correlation to what you do the next year. What you do one game has no correlation to what you do the next game. I’m not saying we’re starting at ground zero, because they know our system and there’s a lot of things they know more than they knew last year, but in terms of where we’re at and the things we’ve got to do, we’ve got a long climb ahead of us.”
Daboll wants to make sure the next time the Giants make it deep into the playoffs, they aren’t blown out of the water like they were in 2022. He admits he’s watched that Eagles loss “a lot” and it clearly left a bad taste in his mouth.
