CLEVELAND, Ohio — The surprise first-year playoff appearance bought former Giants coach Brian Daboll two and a half more seasons. The first-round quarterback his team drafted last spring bought him seven more months.
But the Giants (2-8) decided Monday, hours after a late-game collapse in Chicago, that Daboll had run out of time. And with his firing comes a memo for struggling colleagues like Browns coach Kevin Stefanski:
Patience doesn’t exist in NFL circles. Hurry up and win.
Daboll joined former Titans coach Brian Callahan in the midseason severance line, and these two have more in common than their employment status.
Both coaches drafted a first-round quarterback in April. Neither led a roster built to make the playoffs this season. And in each case, many thought they’d have more time to build a winner.
Many thought wrong. The modern coach’s resume carries two sections: One for wins, one for losses — no subhead space available for circumstances.
The NFL demands results, all the time, even when your team isn’t ready to win. And when you don’t deliver, well, the Giants are one of eight teams who lost 10 games in consecutive seasons between 2022 and 2024. They just became the eighth such team to fire their coach.
You tell me what happens when coaches don’t deliver.
At 2-7 this year and 5-21 since 2024, Stefanski is speeding toward his second straight 10-loss season, which means he’s also testing the limits of ownership’s new patience doctrine.
Reminder: Browns owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam told reporters in July that they planned to “take a step back” after building the league’s most expensive roster last season and watching it win three games. They said they learned their lessons from hasty decisions’ past. They said they recognized a multi-year rebuild in front of them. And they vowed not to judge Stefanski — or general manager Andrew Berry — on record alone.
But restraint is easy to practice when your record is 0-0. At 2-7 with three one-score losses — each defined by its own late-game faux pas — self-control hits different.
You can blame talent deficiency for Cleveland’s blowout losses at Detroit and at Baltimore in September. But you can’t blame it for the special teams’ meltdowns and late-game penalties that cost the Browns their game against the Jets on Sunday.
I wouldn’t characterize the defense’s late collapse against the Minnesota Vikings as a skill issue, either. And be careful blaming an inexperienced quarterback room for Cleveland’s 32nd-ranked offense (by yards per play).
Because it’s the coach’s job to prepare them.
Granted, third-round rookie Dillon Gabriel has only started five games. We still haven’t seen what fellow rookie Shedeur Sanders can do in Stefanski’s system. And if we’re playing the odds — I’ll spare you a Guardians’ gambling joke here — the Browns’ next long-term starting quarterback is still in college.
Cue the four most dangerous words in Stefanski’s profession: Coach needs more time.
After all, Stefanski led Cleveland to a surprise playoff appearance just two seasons ago. He won Coach of the Year Honors (for the second time) in the process. Give him one more year, and he can help develop the Browns’ next franchise quarterback.
Stop me if that sounds familiar.
Daboll also won Coach of the Year after leading New York to the playoffs (and a playoff win) during his first season. And Daboll could have developed Giants rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart into a star with a longer leash. But in the ultimate results-based business, time moves fast. Owners forget accomplishments quickly.
And we know what happens to coaches who don’t deliver.
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