While we wait for a member of the Tisch family to explain why the other half of Giants ownership agreed to enable the franchise’s pathetic status quo, the information currently available suggests that head coach Brian Daboll is the only one on the hot seat entering 2025. Giants GM Joe Schoen, after all, was referencing the amount of salary cap space that the team will have in 2026 and not just this 2025 offseason during his Black Monday press conference, for crying out loud. “We’re sitting here with $40-plus million in cap space and over 100 the following year,” Schoen said. Is he concerned that he won’t get enough time to fully realize his plan? “No,” Schoen said. Schoen was conducting his press conference alone. This was a stark departure from his and Daboll’s typical joint press conference setup, which they consistently have used to portray the optics of collaboration. That’s how they met the media one year ago, for example — when they tried to run an end-around on defensive coordinator Wink Martindale by firing his top two assistants and they avoided Saquon Barkley by not holding individual exit meetings. Martindale responded by resigning out of loyalty to Drew and Kevin Wilkins, leaving Schoen and Daboll with a 2024 defense so disappointing that John Mara hilariously complained more about Shane Bowen’s side than Daboll’s 31st-ranked offense on Monday. Barkley left to sign with the Eagles in free agency and ran for 2,005 yards for the 14-3 NFC East champions. On Monday, Daboll first conducted his solo press conference while standing at a podium in the Giants’ fieldhouse. He was difficult and unhelpful, but maybe he had a good reason for that. Maybe he could see that Mara was demanding several changes in Daboll’s operation while raving about how great Schoen’s process has been assembling one of the worst rosters in the NFL. Why wasn’t Schoen there with him? “He’s coming out here after me — to talk,” Daboll said, the first public announcement by anyone that Schoen was even doing a presser. The reality is many people in the NFL believe that Schoen wanted a new coach, but two primary factors stopped it: 1. This is not an attractive job to candidates 2. Firing Daboll would have ripped down the supposedly collaborative curtain behind the Wizard of Oz. Daniel Jones is being used as this year’s scapegoat. And now it feels like Daboll is being set up to have it pinned on him in 2025 to protect Schoen into 2026. This is the game of thrones the Giants play, though. Getting or being closer to ownership earns people do-overs — or in some cases, lifetime contracts. And give Schoen this: while he is not good at picking players, he is a savvy and proactive politician. Something needs to be explained further about how this all went down, though: Mara said he met with Schoen and Daboll for “several hours” on Friday afternoon and then had a conversation with Steve Tisch “after” the other three met. It would be helpful to know the logistics of why it happened that way and to hear from a member of the Tisch family about why they’re OK with their franchise being driven into the ground. Schoen’s excuse-making continued on Monday. He complained about “the injury gods” compromising his supposedly improved offensive line, one year after connecting the departure of strength and conditioning coach Craig Fitzgerald to improvements that could help the team’s injury fortunes. By the way, the team was actually healthier to start this season and they still “stunk,” in Mara’s words. Schoen lamented left tackle Andrew Thomas’ irreplaceable status on his roster as if that problem weren’t created by Schoen rostering his own draft pick Josh Ezeudu as Thomas’ backup tackle. The GM revisited how in his first year running the Giants, “you’re working with a room full of people that you’re still trying to figure out” while drafting with the incumbent scouting staff. Yeah? Was it that? Or, as Schoen slipped in later, “I reflect on some of the decisions we made and maybe where there was a blind spot or I turned a blind eye to some things that I learned from?” Yeah, drafting Kayvon Thibodeaux and Evan Neal Nos. 5 and 7 overall were the latter. He also took credit for correctly evaluating quarterbacks he hasn’t drafted. That is really something. “We’ve done these quarterback deep dives the last two or three years, and I would say the players that we were high on have [gone] on to have solid rookie years or second years, whatever it may be,” Schoen said. Does that include Bo Nix, a quarterback who just won 10 games for Denver and is starting a playoff game this weekend in Buffalo? A QB who was coached at the Senior Bowl by Daboll’s QB coach Shea Tierney, by the way. Meanwhile, Schoen’s statistic to endorse his promising rookie draft class was how “five out of six of those guys played over 50% of the snaps.” Does he mean that his draft picks all played a lot on arguably the worst team in Giants history, a team that finished 3-14, tied for the worst record in the NFL? Impressive. Who could these arguments possibly work to convince of promise in some so-called plan or process? Giants ownership, it appears. That’s who.