When Brian Daboll was hired, he arrived with a reputation for being outgoing, even gregarious, a wear-your-heart-on-your-sleeve kind of guy who showed his emotions on the sideline, joy and anguish on display for all to see.
Not so anymore.
Oh, Daboll can erupt every now and then during a game but he plays things much more close to the vest, a cause-and-effect result of all the losing that has infiltrated his program and threatens to end his time as the head coach of the Giants after just three seasons.
Nowadays, Daboll gets in and out of press conferences, weekly Zoom interviews and postgame media sessions as quickly and superficially as possible.
He is cordial but reserved, offering little or nothing in the way of perspective or insight, rarely letting his guard down.
Ask him a big-picture question and you get as small-as-possible response.
You want to look down the road?
Daboll will take you only to that day’s practice.
Next season might as well be the next millennium.
There will be no hysterical perspective from Daboll when it comes to delving into any historical perspective.
This week brings another potential brush with infamy, as the Giants (2-13) take a 10-game losing streak — already a franchise record — into Sunday’s game against the Colts (7-8) at MetLife Stadium.
The Giants are 0-8 at home and no team in NFL history has ever gone 0-9 at home in a season — a possibility only the past four seasons since the league went to a 17-game slate.
It would be an ignominious black mark on this team and on Daboll, but he would not engage in discussion about it.
“Just trying to get a win here,’’ Daboll said. “That’s what we’re thinking about.’’
It figures to be another ugly experience on what looks to be a rainy afternoon at the Meadowlands, with rows and rows of empty seats a jarring reminder that the Giants have nothing tangible to play for and are a tough watch.
The fans who are in the building will no doubt be restless and plenty of them will want the Giants to compete hard — and then lose, so as not to screw up getting the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.
At least it looks as if Daboll, general manager Joe Schoen and co-owner John Mara will be spared the indignity of a third flyover from a small aircraft toting a banner demanding that Mara fire everyone.
Expected low clouds and rain forced a New Jersey-based company that flies these planes to cancel orders because of Federal Aviation Administration regulations.
The fate of Daboll and Schoen are both in a state of flux, given how the arrow has tilted harshly down, from nine wins (plus one playoff victory) in 2022 to six wins in 2023 to this season’s plummet to the worst record in the league.
One thing Daboll has not done much of is come out and rip his players when they lapse on the field, which they do on a weekly basis.
Daboll tried his best to outwardly support Daniel Jones during a mostly horrid 10-game stretch to open this season.
Yes, Daboll did point out that Jones failed to put his tight end in motion leading to a brutal and game-altering sack in Pittsburgh.
But Daboll took complete blame for a flea-flicker gone wrong against the Panthers in Munich, saying it was a bad play call and thus his fault.
In fact, it was an excellent play call and it resulted in Malik Nabers running free and Wan’Dale Robinson running even more free and deeper.
The play should have hit big but Jones double-clutched and never made the throw before he got sacked.
This approach does give Daboll a measure of equity in the locker room because players know most of the roughest criticism will come behind closed doors.
“Everybody’s going to make a mistake and you try to fix it,’’ Daboll said. “But I’ll do that in team meetings. These guys put a lot of effort into things, everybody does. Good or bad, when we go through it, that’s the setting that I choose to do it. But again, I’m the head coach, I’ll accept responsibility.’’
Offensive lineman Greg Van Roten, finishing up his 10th year in the NFL and his first season — and likely his last — with the Giants, said he likes Daboll “a lot’’ despite the lack of positive results.
“I think he’s a good coach,’’ Van Roten said. “I came here because I am comfortable in the scheme, and I think it’s a really good scheme. It just hasn’t panned out the way that anybody hoped that it would.’’
It has not come close to panning out, for Daboll or the Giants.
And there’s not much Daboll or anyone else has to say about that.
