Forget helmet-to-helmet collisions and hip-drop tackles — the most dangerous thing in the NFL is a head coach on the hot seat. Brian Daboll was no exception.
Everyone has a sense of self-preservation, and the way that manifests itself in an NFL head coach is to win at all costs. At first blush, it might seem like that's what all coaches want to do, but they also have to balance that win-now mindset with some semblance of thought about the future and the health of their players.
A desperate coach doesn't have that same mentality, because he knows that the next loss could be his last. That's what ultimately did in Brian Daboll, who was relieved of his position as head coach of the Giants on Monday. Daboll presided over a team that was only 2-8, with four double-digit blown leads on the road, including this past Sunday's collapse against the Bears.
Brian Daboll was reckless with Jaxson Dart
That certainly didn't help his case for keeping his job, but what really did him in was the recklessness with which he continued to deploy Jaxson Dart. The rookie quarterback has become one of the most exciting players in the league since taking over the starting job from Russell Wilson in Week 4, thrilling Giants fans with his all gas, no brakes style of play.
Dart has been effective through the air, as he's thrown 10 touchdowns and only three interceptions, and he's really complemented that by using his legs so effectively. He has seven rushing touchdowns in seven starts, while averaging 57.6 rushing yards on over eight carries per game.
Dart is elusive in the open field, and he's shown great straight-line speed when he finds some space. What he doesn't have, at least not yet, is an instinct to protect himself. Few and far between are the times when he's gotten out of bounds or slid to avoid a big hit. Instead, he seems to seek out defenders so that he can inflict punishment on them. When you're the face of a franchise, as Dart clearly already is, you just can't play that way, especially when you're also getting sacked three times per game.
Giants are finally doing right by Jaxson Dart
It's a head coach's responsibility to protect a player from himself, but Daboll not only failed to do that, he put Dart in harm's way again and again. Twice already the former Ole Miss quarterback has had double-digit carries in a game, and he's never run it less than five times. No other quarterback in the league has had as many designed runs as Dart has.
Football fans have seen concussions derail many a promising career. It's not a good sign that Dart already has two of them in a half season's work. The first occurred in Week 6 against the Eagles, an incident which drew over $300,000 in fines from the NFL — $200,000 for the team, $100,000 for Daboll himself, and $15,000 for Cam Skattebo — after the league ruled that Daboll and Skattebo violated protocol by entering the blue medical tent as Dart was being evaluated for a concussion. Both men said they were just checking on Dart, but it was a bad look that the league swiftly and correctly took action on.
The concussion against the Bears was the last straw. The Bears had been penalized earlier for unnecessary roughness after Dart was gang-tackled for a sack, suffering a violent hit to the head that knocked his helmet off in the process. The Giants kept calling designed runs for him after that though, and when Dart fumbled on a keeper after being hit by CJ Gardner-Johnson, all the signs of a concussion there as he lay motionless on the grass and didn't even attempt to retrieve the ball.
Dart was right back in the huddle when the Giants got the ball back again, but after two plays, he was taken out and then ruled out with a concussion. Russell Wilson played the rest of the game as the Bears came back to win.
Protecting Jaxson Dart starts with the Giants
Dart will need to learn to protect himself better in the future, but it's not uncommon for young players to believe they're invincible. That's what coaches are for, to teach best practices and protect players from themselves.
Thankfully, Dart will be sitting out this week, with Jameis Winston set to take his place as the starter. Winston gives the Giants a better chance to win than the ineffective Wilson would have, but that's neither here nor there. What matters is that for the first time, the Giants aren't putting their most important player in harm's way. Finding the right coach this offseason will only help that.
As far as the standings go, this has been a lost season for the Giants. With eight losses and seven games still left to play, they're ostensibly eliminated from postseason contention already. Malik Nabers and Skattebo, the team's two best young skill position weapons, are both out for the year with catastrophic injuries. Dart has already shown enough to prove that the Giants struck gold by taking him with the 25th overall pick. Anything else that happens this season is just window dressing.
Dart should only play when he has a 100 percent clean bill of health, and even then, it makes no sense for the Giants to run him again and again. This is a team that suddenly has a bright future, if it can only stay out of its own way.