Brian Daboll proved he could turn a bad team into a winner in his first season as head coach of the New York Giants.
After taking over for a Giants team that won just four games in 2021, Daboll orchestrated a five-win turnaround that resulted in the organization winning its first playoff game in over a decade.
Since then, though, the Giants front office has hoped Daboll would repeatedly be able to produce miracles like the 2022 season ... but without much assistance.
Fairly naturally, the head coach has been unable to do so.
Daboll has seen his total wins decrease each year he's been head coach in New York. Last season was the pits as the team won three games behind a revolving door at quarterback and struggles along the offensive line.
It's easy for Giant fans to blame Daboll for the team's struggles. After all, he's the face of the organization as head coach.
But our NFL insider Mike Fisher argues, "New York's biggest problem has never been its coach. Its biggest issues stem from an overreaching ownership group and a general manager who has had significantly more misses than hits over his short tenure.
John Mara has owned the Giants since 2005. Early in his career, he stayed out of football affairs while Tom Coughlin coached the team to two Super Bowl titles. Since those championship victories, though, New York has been one of the worst teams in football.
"A big reason for that is Mara's insistence on making his opinions felt regarding football decisions.''
What is Fish's evidence of this? Mara reportedly did what he could to get the Giants front office to giving former sixth-overall pick Daniel Jones a long-term contract. That was a key turning point for Daboll's team as Jones' struggles sunk the team over the last two years.
Daboll, we will argue, was able to win with Jones at quarterback during that first season, but he was not his signal-caller of choice. He was forced to make it work with a deficient player that set the team back.
Then there is general manager Joe Schoen.
From Fish: "Since arriving with the head coach in 2022, Schoen has made 31 draft picks, multiple trades, and free-agent signings to keep the Giants in hoped-for title contention. To say those decisions have failed the team would be an understatement.''
Indeed, from the struggles in the first round with Evan Neal and Deonte Banks or the failed trades of players like Darren Waller, the Giants' front office has given Daboll's coaching staff far too little in new tools to work with.
Cap it all off with the decision to let Saquon Barkley walk down the highway to the Philadelphia Eagles as a Super Bowl ... and the people above Daboll have, Fish says "let down the coach to the extent that if he gets fired, he has the right to be privately furious about it because unintentionally, of course, he's been set up by his bosses' inadequacies to fail.''
Daboll has undoubtedly made mistakes along the way - maybe he should've been the offensive guru to fix Daniel Jones, and had he done so, New York wouldn't be in this mess - but he has shown he can coach a mediocre team to play at a high level.
But taking "mediocre'' to the playoffs doesn't happen perennially.
And being mediocre perennially is the fault of the people upstairs.