Daniel Jones had every reason not to trust the Giants’ new regime.
As Jones entered his fourth NFL season, Brian Daboll would be his third coach, bringing with him Mike Kafka, Jones’s fourth offensive coordinator. Joe Schoen would be his second GM, replacing the one who had spent the sixth pick of the 2019 draft on him. In May, collectively, Schoen and Daboll made the decision to decline the fifth-year option on Jones’s rookie contract, effectively setting him free after this year.
If Jones was put off by all that, it would be understandable. Instead, he and Daboll did something novel in the aftermath of that decision. They acted like adults. They built a relationship and they got ready to work together.
“It was just like I’d build a relationship with anybody—get to know them, get to know about their family, get to know about the person,” Daboll said over his cell as he departed Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in North London on Sunday, headed for Heathrow Airport. “Really, just … I mean, it was nothing earth-shattering—just try to get to know him and let him get to know me.”
Little did either know that the result, no more than five months later, would be Daboll fist-pumping his way off a turf field in England, shouting at no one in particular after his Giants moved to 4–1, keyed by Jones’s gutsy effort in a come-from-behind win over Aaron Rodgers and the Packers. Those are the same Packers, by the way, that finished nine, seven and nine games ahead of New York in the NFC over Jones’s first three years.
There they were, coach and quarterback, together leading the Giants back from a 14-point deficit in the second quarter and a 10-point deficit at the half to score a win that validated everything that had happened over the first month of the season.
“I’ve really enjoyed working with Dabes—I think we have a great relationship, and I’ve learned a ton from him,” Jones says. “Obviously, it’s been great learning his system and just how he sees football, how he sees offense and what it takes to win and be successful in this league. And yeah, the contractual stuff, it is what it is, but I think focusing on the field, on what we gotta do every week to win games, that’s where my head’s been at. I think that’s where his is. And I’ve really enjoyed working with him.”
Whether this will last past this year is anyone’s guess. For now, it’s working for Daboll and Jones. Just like so many other things seem to be working in Daboll’s first year in New York.
