Brian Daboll was fired by the New York Giants after starting the season 2-8. His successor could be someone familiar with the NFC East.
The Dallas Cowboys will no longer be the NFC East team with the newest head coach.
Brian Daboll, the head coach of the New York Giants for the last four years, was fired this week after the team's 2-8 showing so far season. Daboll was 20-40-1 overall during his tenure in the Big Apple. The team's assistant head coach and offensive coordinator Mike Kafka has taken over in interim.
The final straw for Daboll proved to be the Giants' squandering of another double-digit lead - their fourth such loss this season - to the Chicago Bears on the road in Week 10, a game in which quarterback Jaxson Dart, whom Daboll pleaded with the front office to draft this past spring, went down with a concussion.
Dart's above-average rushing ability has been put to the test, and sometimes pushed the to brink of recklessness, throughout this season. This was the fourth time the Ole Miss product has been evaluated for a concussion ... a spot that's best represented by Daboll once nervously peaking inside the blue injury tent when Dart was momentarily subbed out of their Week 6 win over the Philadelphia Eagles.
Now the search begins for Daboll's replacement, a free agent name has been floated with recent ties to the division: Mike McCarthy, formally of the Cowboys as the mentor/predecessor of Dallas' current head coach Brian Schottenheimer.
Former standout Giants running back Tiki Barber thinks McCarthy should be the team's top target.
"As much as I would love to go the young whippersnapper who’s going to be an offensive genius, I do think they need someone who’s done it before, and the obvious answer is Mike McCarthy,” Barber told WFAN this week.
McCarthy earned his reputation of a quarterback guru after reaching the pinnacle of the sport with Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers, as well as constructing some of the league's best offenses with Dak Prescott in Dallas.
With the rookie Dart showing promise now that he's been handed the keys to the offense as a starter, McCarthy could be the best available option to unlock his full potential next season.
McCarthy's failures in the postseason with the Cowboys - notably the beat down in the 2023 Wild Card round at the hands of the Packers - were ultimately what cut his time short with "America's Team". He was 49-35 overall and 1-3 in the playoffs with Dallas.
Since Schottenheimer's hiring ahead of this season, McCarthy had vowed to take the 2025 season off and reconnect with his family away from football. Throughout this season, however, he's become a regular guest analyst on ESPN's Pat McAfee Show and has expressed interest in a return to coaching.
Could his next stop be back in the NFC East?