Former Giants head coach Brian Daboll calls role 'a hard chair to sit in'
Former Giants head coach Brian Daboll walks off the field at MetLife Stadium on Oct. 9, 2025. Credit: Getty Images/Al Bello
Brian Daboll gave his first comments as offensive coordinator of the Titans at a press conference in Nashville on Wednesday. They also happened to be his first comments as the fired former head coach of the Giants.
Daboll had not spoken publicly since he was canned by the Giants on Nov. 10. While much of the focus of this event was on his new job, he did touch upon his old one. When he did, he sounded almost relieved to no longer have the pressures that came with it.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for the job Robert has to do from being in that,” Daboll said of Robert Saleh, the former head coach of the Jets, who was hired as the head coach of the Titans and brought Daboll aboard this offseason. “I am very happy to be where I am at right now and be part of this football team as the offensive coordinator. I’m always going to be here for Robert and the rest of the staff, but that’s a hard chair to sit in and having some experience sitting in it will help me relative to being the best teammate I can be for this staff. This is the place I want to be. I’m excited to be here. I look forward to working with this young nucleus, working with Robert, and doing the best job I can do as offensive coordinator.”
Daboll spent almost four seasons as head coach of the Giants. He won NFL Coach of the Year in 2022, when the Giants won a playoff game, but after that success was hard to come by. By the time he was fired on Nov. 10, the Giants had gone 20-40-1 during his tenure.
Daboll interviewed with the Titans for their vacant head coach job in January before it went to Saleh, but that did not prevent him from accepting the offensive coordinator role when offered to him.
As for what he learned from his time with the Giants, Daboll said: “This is my 26th year in the National Football League. You [reflect] every year at whatever stop you are at. There are a lot of things I learned along the way, whether as a defensive assistant, a quarterbacks coach, a receivers coach. You try to do a better job the next place you are at, and my role is to help our football team be the best offense we can be under the direction of Robert, which I think is very important to take the lead from the head coach.”
One other way being head coach of the Giants helped prepare Daboll for his current job was that it allowed him to get to know Cam Ward leading up to last year’s draft. Ward was chosen first overall by the Titans, and the Giants selected Jaxson Dart later in the first round, but Daboll and the Giants did their homework on Ward.
“We had a lot of touch points with him,” Daboll said on Wednesday. “Meetings, top-30 visits, going down to Miami, dinner with him and his family. A good relationship built up with him leading up to the draft… I feel comfortable with Cam.”
Daboll felt that way with Dart, too. In October after Dart’s first loss as a starter against the Saints, Daboll said of Dart: “There’s no young quarterback I'd rather have to work with than Jaxson.”
As for Ward, Daboll said: “He’s got some moxie to him. He’s tough. He holds himself to a high standard, which is important for that position… The personalities we each have, it was a good fit.”
Daboll did concede that he still has a lot more to learn about Ward, and that their football conversations won’t really begin until the team assembles in April. When that happens, the two will have to build on the foundations of the relationship they began pouring last spring.
Daboll did concede that he’ll be interested to see how his coaching style connects with Ward.
“I think it’s well-documented I get pretty heated at times,” Daboll said of the temper that sometimes became a distraction for the Giants and occasionally veered into non-compliance, such as when he frantically sought to check on Dart in the blue medical tent on the sideline and drew a fine of $100,000 from the league along with $200,000 for the team. “That’s who I am.”
Job titles change. Responsibilities change. But Daboll’s personality? That may be more difficult to adjust.
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.
