“What is going on with the Giants?’’
That question was raised early and often the past two-plus weeks as flocks of NFL personnel gathered in two cities that are as different as the events they hosted.
There is a week of scouting at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., that runs directly into the week of Super Bowl hype, held this year, for the first time, in Las Vegas. There was a time when “Vegas” was taboo in NFL circles, but greed is good and gambling is now embraced and “Viva, Las Vegas’’ is hummed at the NFL office as the money rolls in.
The Senior Bowl is part of the final stages of the in-the-weeds scouting process that the best teams excel at to survey the obvious top players and to uncover the gems and lesser-known prospects for the upcoming NFL Draft (without the under-the-radar work that takes place during the Senior Bowl, it’s not possible for the two teams to make it to the Super Bowl). This process really heads for home at the end of February at the Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, and machinations for trades and deals get cooking at the end of March at the NFL owners meeting, held this year in Orlando.
In Mobile, it was mostly about connecting with current coaches and general managers, plus scores of media members from throughout the league. In Las Vegas, it was what has evolved into an annual NFL convention with current players, former players and former coaches trying to get a piece of the action, making appearances for companies and foundations, attending parties and making the rounds on Radio Row, a modern-day Babel.
The casual collisions that took place often took on a familiar feel. An exchange of pleasantries, followed by a query as to what went on with the Giants on the field in 2023, what went on with the Giants off the field in the immediate aftermath of that disappointing season and what the heck the Giants are going to do to fix their issues.
The vibe that came out of these conversations: There is rampant skepticism about whether the Giants are on a good path.
This is all outside speculation, and sometimes it looks worse from further away. Sometimes, not.
There is little doubt that the way the Brian Daboll-Wink Martindale saga unfolded was viewed as a bad look all around.
There is plenty of doubt about the Giants’ plan to start Daniel Jones at quarterback to open the 2024 season, as long as his surgically repaired right knee is healed. The reaction to that plan is often eye rolls. Interjections of “they have to draft a quarterback, right?’’ punctuate any initial talk about the draft.
“What really went down with Dabes and Wink?’’ People want to know.
While acknowledging the lack of professionalism Martindale displayed, cursing out his boss and then storming out of the building — Martindale did not land an NFL defensive coordinator job, but did get hired for that role at Michigan — there was a strong sense from outside observers that this is also a hit for Daboll. It just looked bad from the outside.
Then came the prolonged search for a new defensive coordinator and more speculation that Daboll was having a hard time filling that role because of insinuations he is tough to work for and that he might be entering his final season with the Giants unless he turns things around after a sensational 2022 head coaching debut went sour in 2023. The hiring of Shane Bowen from the Titans was met largely with shoulder shrugs.
This is what it looks like or feels like to those on the outside. Daboll is pleased with the new staff he formed after having several defections from his 2023 staff for a variety of reasons.
The draft plans will continue to take shape. The Giants will add a quarterback in free agency who is seen as more than a career backup, and they are considering all sorts of scenarios to add a quarterback in the draft. At the moment, it feels more like urgency than desperation. The Giants understand Jones is a medical concern, based on two neck injuries and now coming off a torn ACL, and they know now he must be considered a risk to miss time.
At this time last year, after the Chiefs beat the Eagles in Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Ariz., the Giants were seen as on the rise, though not yet capable of supplanting the Eagles or Cowboys at the top of the NFC East. Daboll traveled to Arizona during Super Bowl week to receive the NFL Coach of the Year award. A year later, before the Chiefs beat the 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII, there was no need for Daboll to step foot in Vegas. He was back in New Jersey, putting the finishing touches on his revised coaching staff while many around the league questioned what is going on with the Giants.
Why not Spags?
Those “In Spags We Trust’’ T-shirts that several Chiefs defensive players wore after beating the Ravens in the AFC Championship Game increased in value after Spagnuolo orchestrated another outrageously good defensive game plan in Super Bowl LVIII.
One example of how good Spagnuolo was in the game: He called for a perfectly timed and disguised blitz, sending cornerback Trent McDuffie in on third-and-5 late in the fourth quarter. McDuffie deflected Brock Purdy’s pass intended for Jauan Jennings, forcing the 49ers to settle for a field goal to take a 19-16 lead with 1:53 remaining in regulation.
That stop allowed the Chiefs to work more Patrick Mahomes magic to force overtime with a field goal of their own, and after holding the 49ers to another field goal to begin overtime, they eventually won it, 25-22.
Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill, who won a Super Bowl with the Chiefs, posed a question on his X account not long after the game: Why didn’t Spagnuolo’s name come up when all those NFL head coaching jobs were vacant?
It is a valid question.
The hiring cycle for this offseason is over, and in contrast to recent trends, five of the eight openings went to candidates with backgrounds on defense (the Commanders’ Dan Quinn, the Falcons’ Raheem Morris, the Patriots’ Jerod Mayo, the Raiders’ Antonio Pierce and the Seahawks’ Mike Macdonald). Spagnuolo did not get a single interview.
This is a guy who has done something unprecedented, becoming the first coordinator in NFL history with four Super Bowl titles. He got his first with the Giants after the 2007 season and now has three championships with the Chiefs.
At 64, Spagnuolo was not on the list of hot candidates, despite his overwhelming success. He said last week in Las Vegas he would “love to’’ get another shot at becoming a head coach “because I think you always want another chance at it. And I loved having a whole team. But I’m OK if we keep going to Super Bowls. It’s tough to get a head job when you keep playing in the playoffs this late.’’
That is true, and the NFL probably needs to do something about that. Assistant coaches and coordinators on Super Bowl teams should not be penalized for the success of their teams.
After two big years with the Giants, his first two as a coordinator, Spagnuolo was hired as head coach by the St. Louis Rams. Like many first-time NFL head coaches, Spagnuolo inherited a mess: The Rams had been 3-13 and 2-14 the previous two seasons.
Spagnuolo was not a miracle worker. He went 1-15, 7-9 and 2-14 in three seasons — a combined record of 10-38 — before he was fired.
Someone who was there for Spagnulo’s tenure with the Rams said Spagnuolo deserved better.
“It is well past time to see Spags get another head coaching opportunity,” Kevin Demoff, the Rams’ chief operating officer, wrote on X in response to Hill’s post.
Demoff, who was in his first year with the Rams when Spagnuolo was hired, went on to detail all of the issues Spagnuolo could not overcome: a salary-cap mess, the NFL lockout that sapped momentum after the 7-9 season, mass injuries, the late arrival of Josh McDaniels as offensive coordinator disrupting the development of quarterback Sam Bradford in 2011.
“The team & organization he inherited in STL was a mess, nobody could have had success,” Demoff wrote. “Yet he changed the culture/staff & players believed. An amazing human deserving of the real shot we couldn’t give him.”
The only subsequent shot for Spagnuolo came at the tail end of the 2017 season when the Giants fired Ben McAdoo after 12 games. Spagnuolo, in his second stint running the Giants’ defense, was named the interim head coach and went 1-3 with a lackluster roster.
In some ways, Spagnuolo is in the perfect spot. He is incredibly well-respected and has a chance for more Super Bowl rings as long as Mahomes is healthy. In some ways, he might be too nice of a guy to thrive as an NFL head coach. Not that he is a soft touch, but he is so modest and spiritually serene that the role an NFL head coach needs to play might not suit him.
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