Brian Daboll is lucky he didn’t get Daniel Jones hurt after hanging him out to dry in blowout loss to Cowboys

This could have ended really bad for Brian Daboll and the Giants.

Brian Daboll has been a godsend for the New York Giants — the steadying force they’ve needed for so long after cycling through four head coaches in six years since parting with Tom Coughlin in 2016. In his first year, Daboll adopted a team in shambles and guided them to their first playoff win since 2011, exceeding even the most optimistic expectations.

It’s hard to think of one wrong thing he’s done in his short time as Giants coach, which is why Monday’s season opener against the Dallas Cowboys was so perplexing.

Not only did Daboll’s team seem wholly unprepared for a game in their home stadium against a division rival, the coach also curiously left quarterback Daniel Jones in the rainy game even once the Giants were down 40-0 in the fourth quarter. Jones had already taken a pretty good beating to that point, and it commenced another two drives until Daboll finally waved the white flag on their final possession.

The most head-scratching part was other key starters had already been pulled, including the team’s best offensive lineman left tackle Andrew Thomas. So things may have been even worse for Jones when the game was the furthest out of reach. As you can see from the clip, Saquon Barkley was also done.

But Daboll left Jones in there to keep dropping back and keep getting hit. In total, Jones was sacked seven times, he threw two picks and fumbled twice. Dallas was credited with 12 quarterback hits.

In fairness to Daboll, Jones said in his postgame press conference he wanted to stay in the game. But he also said there wasn’t a conversation about him coming out. In other words, he didn’t have much of a choice.

Daboll confirmed there was never a conversation about pulling Jones, saying he left him in to get something positive going. In case you missed the game, nothing positive came from that decision.

The Giants’ offensive line continued to play the roll of turnstile and Cowboys defenders disregarded them like teenagers in the New York subway.

Luckily for Daboll, Jones didn’t get hurt. Though he played an awful game, the Giants still need him healthy to accomplish their goals for the season. As FTW’s Mike Sykes wrote, it’s too early to give up on any of the bad quarterbacks from Week 1. And the Giants didn’t pay Jones all that money this offseason just for the coach to let him get hurt in garbage time of a blowout.

This was a bad call by Daboll and hopefully a lesson learned. There was nothing to gain from leaving Jones in and a lot to potentially lose besides the game.