Giants must fire Brian Daboll for Jaxson Dart injustice in another unthinkable collapse| Politi

The Giants shouldn’t have let Brian Daboll get back on the team plane after what happened in Chicago on Sunday afternoon. Yes, that is one of the oldest cliches in sportswriting, but every once in a while, it is also entirely appropriate.

This is one of those times. This loss to the Bears, the latest impossible collapse in a season filled with them, would be enough to warrant leaving Daboll on the O’Hare tarmac. The same team that threw away games in Dallas and Denver added another major city on this U.S. Tour of Ineptitude, and the head coach’s fingerprints are all over it.

What tortured Giants fan couldn’t see this one coming? The Giants had a fourth-and-goal at the Chicago 1-yard line with a chance to go ahead two touchdowns with 10 minutes to go. Daboll opted for the 19-yard field goal, a decision that nearly made FOX commentator Greg Olsen’s head explode. The Bears had 13 men on the field, a penalty that moved the Giants even closer to the goal line (a half-yard away), but Daboll stubbornly did not change his mind.

The same Giants defense that turned quarterbacks Dak Prescott and Bo Nix into fourth-quarter superstars let Bears quarterback Caleb Williams take over the game from there. The coach didn’t go for the jugular, and once again, the result was a forever memory ... for an opposing team’s fans.

But all that is not the main reason that Giants co-owner John Mara should hand Daboll the cardboard box on Monday morning. That happened in the fourth quarter, when rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart limped out of the blue medical tent and back to the locker room after the most predictable concussion in NFL history.

Daboll has treated the most precious commodity in professional football — a young franchise quarterback — with all the care of a demolition derby car. He has sent Dart barreling into defensive lines, again and again, with little regard for the rookie’s long-term well-being.

He did this despite the likelihood, perhaps certainty, that this moment in the third quarter on Sunday afternoon in Chicago would happen. Dart took the ball on another designed run deep in Bears territory when a hard blindside hit jarred the ball from his arms.

The quarterback’s helmet crashed into Soldier Field’s frozen turf as he was thrown to the ground. Dart, clearly dazed, needed a moment before getting to his feet. It appeared at first that the Giants had dodged another bullet. They did not.

When the fourth quarter started, backup Russell Wilson trotted onto the field with the offense. Dart was in the dreaded blue medical tent, and minutes later, he walked gingerly to the locker room with a team official. His day was done.

“Yeah, it’s unfortunate, but, you know, unfortunate that he got hurt,” Daboll said.

Unfortunate? That’s the best he could do? The entire future of the franchise rests on this team developing Dart into a star. The injury wasn’t unfortunate. It was reckless.

“I’ll just say it’s unfortunate he got hurt,” Daboll repeated when reporters pressed him on his choice of words.

Again, what did Daboll think was going to happen? This is not a second guess, either. I wrote after a 34-17 victory over the Eagles on Oct. 10 that it “feels like the whole thing is hanging by a thread” because of Dart’s tendency to take a beating every ... single ... game.

I asked Dart about it directly: How does he measure the desire to get that extra yard with protecting his body? He did not love the question.

“I’ve definitely answered this question a lot,” Dart said, “but there are just situations where, it’s third down, I’m going to get the first down. That’s important to me. That’s important to the team. We’ve got to keep the drives alive.”

No, actually, the first downs are far less important than the quarterback staying alive. If Dart, a competitive 22-year-old just starting his journey, didn’t understand that, he needed his head coach — the adult in the room — to protect him from himself.

Daboll insisted that he did that in the third quarter, that he was the one who saw signs of a concussion in his player and told him to meet with the team doctors. “Let’s get him out and get him looked at,” Daboll said, although he could not offer specifics as to when that conversation took place.

Forgive us for not believing his insistence that he “would never put a guy out there that was hurt.” Daboll poked his head into the blue medical tent in that victory over the Eagles, then reamed out the team doctor on the MetLife Stadium sideline for not getting his quarterback back on the field quickly enough. The embarrassing sequence led to a fine and an apology from the head coach.

This time, it must be more than that. Mara needs to ask himself this: If Dart is ready to return to the field next week, does he trust Daboll to protect the rookie from the next big hit? Or has the owner who stuck with his head coach despite a record that now stands at 20-40-1 finally seen enough to make the inevitable change?

“I’m just focused on these guys in the locker room,” Daboll said when asked about his job security.

The team let him get back on the plane. It should be the last thing he does as head coach of this team.

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