As the New York Giants headed into the 2023 season, they thought they had nailed the general manager and head coaching positions with the hiring of Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll to five-year contracts.
The Giants were coming off a 9-7-1 2022 regular season finish and a trip to the playoffs that included a win on the road. Schoen appeared to be fully in charge and Daboll was the darling of the football world being named the NFL’s Coach of the Year.
But a lot has gone down since then. The Giants’ juggernaut has dropped out of the sky and are in a death spiral. They are 8-23 since the start of the 2023 season and going nowhere fast.
They do not have a franchise quarterback of the future on their roster and many are questioning the competence of the entire organization from ownership on down.
Paul Schwartz of the New York Post, who has been covering the team for over 30 years, believes that if the Giants make changes this offseason, it may not be a clean sweep. They may decide to keep both Schoen and Daboll or they may keep one and let the other go.
Veteran sports author and columnist, Ian O’Connor, looked back at the move to hire Schoen and Daboll and the other options the Giants had available to them with back then.
“The Giants loved Adam Peters as a GM candidate but loved Joe Schoen just a bit more,” O’Connor posted on X. “They thought John Harbaugh’s guy in Baltimore, Joe Hortiz, was a bit nervous in his interview, but he was going to hire Jim Harbaugh as Giants head coach. What could have been?”
Peters was with San Francisco at the time as general manager John Lynch’s assistant. He was hired this past offseason by Washington to be their GM. The Commanders are 9-5 this season and headed towards the playoffs.
Hortiz was the Ravens’ Director of Player Personnel and is now the general manager of the Los Angeles Chargers and did indeed hire Jim Harbaugh as his head coach. The Chargers are 8-6 this season and currently are in the seventh playoff spot in the AFC.
While these other teams are flourishing, the Giants are floundering. Yes, what could have been…?
