Former NFL Executive Takes Aim at Giants Following Hard Knock Episode 1

Former NFL executive Mike Lombardi, who has never been afraid to express his feelings about league matters, is no fan of the revelations that aired on the premiere episode of Hard Knocks.  

On Wednesday’s edition of the Lombardi Line podcast, Lombardi questioned the Giants for backing quarterback Daniel Jones.

“To me, there’s a disconnect,” Lombardi said. “There was a sense. . . that somewhere on some tape that I can’t find that Daniel Jones has played above the line. I can’t find that tape. I don’t see it.

“They act like if he’s healthy, (they’re) going to be really good. And I’m missing that. So, for me, that was hard to understand and get my arms around.”

This isn’t Lombardi’s first question about the Giants loyalty to Jones. He did so back in February during a radio interview in which he said, “Nothing would make [the Giants] more happy than Daniel Jones being successful. They’re almost willing it to happen. It won’t, but they’re hoping it will.”  

In addition to taking aim at Jones, Lombardi also believes that the Giants’ current decision-making progress has too many cooks in the kitchen, which can be detrimental to making critical decisions that are truly in the best interest of the franchise.

“When you’ve got that many people involved in decision-making, you’re going to make a bad decision. You’ve got too many opinions,” Lombardi said. 

“They really don’t know who they are. They don’t know what a Giant player is. To me, that’s the biggest problem I took away.

“What is a Giant player? Like, who are we? What is our identity? You can’t get that from Shane Bowen. You can’t get that from Mike Kafka. You have to have an identity from who you are as a team.”

“If you don’t know who you are, how the hell do you find players out there who can fix it?” he said.  

One valid point Lombardi made is that following the resignation of head coach Tom Coughlin, New York went on a destructive odyssey in which it turned over its coaching staff every two years, starting with Ben McAdoo, who succeeded Coughlin. 

After McAdoo was dismissed, Pat Shurmur and Joe Judge each got two seasons before being dismissed. With each head coach firing, the Giants had to press the reset button to accommodate the vision the next head coach brought with him, including the types of players desired for the roster. 

Brian Daboll, the current head coach, is entering his third season at the helm. The hope is that team ownership will be patient enough with him and general manager Joe Schoen as they continue to build up the roster. Daboll has a 15-18-1 career record as head coach of the Giants, having gone 9-7-1 in his first seasons and leading the team to the playoffs for the first time since 2016.

Giants co-owner John Mara admitted that being patient isn’t one of his strong suits, telling reporters after Daboll was announced as the team’s new head coach, “It’s going to be hard [to be patient], but I’m going to have to force myself to do it. 

“I’ve run out of patience over the last few years, but I also understand this is a long-term project. This is not an overnight thing.” 

Time will, of course, tell if the Giants’ current collaborative approach to decision-making bears fruit and if their continued faith in Jones is the right decision. 

If not, seeing what the team does after the season will be interesting.