Bills OC Brian Daboll will have his second interview for Giants' head coaching job on Tuesday

Sunday’s gut-wrenching overtime playoff loss by Buffalo could prove to be a win for the Giants.

If Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll indeed is atop the list of candidates to become their new head coach — and all indications are that he is planted rather firmly in that position — the Giants might be able to fill the position by the end of this week.

Daboll is scheduled to have an in-person second interview with the Giants on Tuesday.

Daboll’s offense scored 36 points in the epic loss to Kansas City (not to mention 15 points in the final two minutes of regulation, more than the Giants scored in seven of their last eight full games of the season and barely less than the 15.2 points the Giants averaged in all of their games).

If the Bills had won, Daboll would not have been able to speak with the Giants until next week after the AFC Championship Game. Had the Bills won that, he would have been unable to formally accept the job until after the Super Bowl on Feb. 13.

Daboll is not the first candidate to meet face-to-face with the Giants. That honor belonged to Cowboys defensive coordinator and former Falcons head coach Dan Quinn.

The native of Morristown, New Jersey, who is very highly sought after in this hiring cycle and reportedly has been named a finalist for the jobs in Denver and Chicago, spent Monday in East Rutherford discussing the Giants’ vacancy. New general manager Joe Schoen, along with team ownership (John Mara, Steve Tisch, Chris Mara), conducted the interview.

Still, Daboll appears to be the candidate the Giants — and in particular Schoen, who has known him for five years while he was assistant GM in Buffalo — are zeroing in on. Just hours after Schoen was named Giants GM on Friday, the team was on a video conference with Daboll for the first of their first-round interviews. And just hours after the Bills’ devastating loss on Sunday, plans were made to bring Daboll to New Jersey for his in-person second interview.

Daboll also is a candidate for the job in Miami.

Daboll picked up an endorsement from Bills quarterback Josh Allen in a season-ending news briefing Monday.

"I think teams would be foolish not to offer Brian Daboll a job," Allen told reporters. "I’m praying they don’t, because I want him back here, but I love him and his family too much to really think that. I think he’s one of the best coaches in the league."

Last week, Bills GM Brandon Beane shared a similar sentiment: "I think Brian is going to do a great job when he gets a chance as a head coach."

Despite all the mutual interest, the Giants will not be able to offer Daboll the job on Tuesday. They have yet to comply with the league’s Rooney Rule, which requires an in-person interview with an external minority candidate. That should take place in the coming days, though, when former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores is brought in to make his case for the job. Flores is considered the one candidate who could leapfrog Daboll on the Giants’ wish list. The Giants also plan to interview current defensive coordinator Patrick Graham.

Besides Daboll, the Giants held two other remote first-round interviews with candidates still in the postseason over the weekend: Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier and Bengals defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo.

Like Daboll, Frazier is free to be interviewed a second time at any point because of the Bills’ loss. Anarumo, if he were to become a finalist and receive a second interview, would have to wait until the week between the AFC Championship Game and the Super Bowl because of the Bengals’ win over the Titans on Saturday.

Having a new head coach on board this week would allow the new hire to start building a staff. Teams typically conduct such interviews for assistant coaches and coordinators during the week of the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama, and those events begin Jan. 31. It also would allow Schoen and the new head coach to watch the prospects at the Senior Bowl together and get a feel for how they see prospects fitting into their new plans for the franchise.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.