The New York Giants made one of the more surprising moves of the season this week, firing Brian Daboll, the second head coach to lose his job this year. It caught plenty of people off guard, mostly because Daboll’s seat never seemed particularly hot. Among those reacting was his former quarterback, Daniel Jones, now thriving with the Indianapolis Colts.

“Yeah, I just kinda heard about it recently. And obviously, you never want to see anyone fired. It’s an unfortunate part of this business. So yeah, I think that’s the reaction. I hope for the best for him and everybody there in New York,” Jones said.

The two shared a memorable run just a couple of years ago. In 2024, Jones and Daboll’s final game together came in Germany, a 2–8 Giants team losing to the Carolina Panthers. Not long after, Daniel Jones was released, and it was probably for the best.

The Colts picked him up, initially as a backup, but he won the starting job over Anthony Richardson in training camp. Now, he’s leading one of the league’s most balanced offenses and has Indianapolis sitting at 8–2, firmly in the playoff picture.

It’s a far cry from how things ended in New York. In 2022, Daboll’s first year, he and Daniel Jones helped guide the Giants to the postseason. It was a breakthrough season that earned Jones a four-year extension. But the following year, inconsistency and injuries sent everything sideways.

Jones was gone not too long after, and Daboll has now followed him out the door.

Ironically, Daboll might’ve fared better this season if he’d had Jones under center again. Quarterback instability has been the Giants’ undoing. They opened the year with Russell Wilson, then turned to rookie Jaxson Dart in hopes of finding a spark. For a few weeks, it looked promising, until it didn’t.

Dart showed flashes but also the growing pains you expect from a first-year passer. There’s only so much a rookie can carry when the roster around him is unsettled. Still, a midseason firing usually signals one thing: the franchise isn’t giving up just yet.

What’s next for the Giants?

Look around the league, and it’s clear some teams have already shifted their focus to next year. The Browns traded away multiple veterans. The Jets moved on from both Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner. Those are moves made by organizations thinking long-term, not trying to salvage the present.

The New York Giants, though, aren’t wired that way. Not yet.

They still believe there’s something left to play for. And when you look at the NFC East, they might be right. Outside of the Eagles, the division is wide open. The Commanders have dropped five straight, and while the Cowboys made a splash by trading for Williams, one player isn’t going to fix that defense.

So if the Giants can find any kind of rhythm over the next month, finishing second in the division isn’t far-fetched. The schedule’s not kind, there’s no pretending otherwise. But they still control a lot of their fate, with key matchups against both Washington and Dallas coming up.

That challenge now falls to Mike Kafka, the team’s offensive coordinator and assistant head coach, who takes over in the interim. Kafka arrived in New York in 2022 after cutting his teeth with the Chiefs, where he worked closely with Patrick Mahomes and helped shape one of the league’s most dynamic offenses.

Since then, he’s been a steady presence on the Giants’ staff, and his promotion last year to assistant head coach signaled how much faith the organization had in him. The Giants likely won’t hire a permanent head coach until the offseason, which means the rest of this year runs through Kafka.