Giants only concerned about meeting own high expectations
NY Post
Expectations in the NFL are like volatile roller coasters. They can be exhilarating when they’re met or exceeded. And they can make you queasy when things aren’t as easy.
When Brian Daboll was hired to replace Joe Judge as the Giants head coach in 2022, the team was in the midst of a five-season free fall that included just 22 wins against 59 losses.
So the expectations for Daboll’s first season, outside of the Giants locker room, weren’t exactly what you would term lofty.
Yet, there were the Giants, finishing 9-7-1 and winning a wild-card playoff game at Minnesota, earning Daboll NFL Coach of the Year honors. It was the Giants’ first postseason game since 2016 and first playoff victory since their 2011 Super Bowl season.
That kind of success wasn’t expected by anyone, least of all Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen, who were embarking on a full-on culture reboot and roster teardown, and were prepared for a slow and steady climb to respectability.
The immediate and surprising success proved to be a curse of sorts, though, because the bar was raised to a level the 2023 Giants weren’t able to reach.
With the Yankees on an impressive run of mostly correct decisions, there’s some reason to leave them alone and just let the best team in the American League continue to roll. But they did raise serious doubt and leave room for suggestions (and even ridicule) following maybe the most inexplicable decision of this season, or any season.
The Giants have never been 0-2 under Brian Daboll, until now. They were 2-0 and flying high in 2022 and 1-1 after a rousing comeback in Arizona in 2023. So, this represents a low point as far as early-season difficulties for Daboll and the Giants. They had no business beating the Vikings in the opener and no business losing to the Commanders in Week 2. But here they are.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Harrison Butker kept making a lonely walk to midfield after each quarter Sunday to check on the direction of the wind, which tends to swirl inside Arrowhead Stadium. He did it one last time during the 2-minute warning, when his Chiefs were trailing the Bengals by two and trying to give him a winning field-goal attempt.