John Mara’s choice to stand pat a Giants double-edged sword

Back in October, back before 2-5 swelled into 3-14, John Mara’s press conference at a screening for “The Duke: Wellington Mara’s Giant Life” doubled as the first glimpse at job security for head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen. He did “not anticipate” making offseason changes. That, in spite of mounting evidence suggesting the Giants’ owner should act otherwise, meant there’d be continuity.

But as the season spiraled and Daniel Jones was replaced by Tommy DeVito, then Drew Lock, then DeVito, then Tim Boyle and then Lock again, the weight of Mara’s support started to fade extrinsically. At times, starting over made sense. At other points, the scenario of Schoen staying and Daboll going emerged as a possibility, too.

Then, Black Monday arrived. Mara released a statement at 8:40 a.m. — a little more than 16 hours after the Giants’ season ended with a 20-13 loss against the JV Eagles — announcing that both Schoen and Daboll will return in 2025. He held court with a scrum of reporters hours later and uttered the necessary lines about results needing to change, about how he was running out of patience, about how he couldn’t say for certain that the Giants’ roster had improved since Schoen took over following the 2021 campaign. Mara didn’t specifically float a playoffs-or-bust ultimatum. But it quickly became clear that his tank of patience had all but emptied.

“Nobody’s more frustrated and upset than I am,” Mara said. “… But I still believe this is the right decision for us going forward.”