It would not be completely unprecedented for the Giants to retain head coach Brian Daboll after a two-win season.
But close to it.
The year was 1983: The Internet officially launched, Sally Ride became the first American woman in space and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers stumbled to a 2-14 record that didn’t lead to the firing of John McKay.
McKay serves as the only example in the past 46 NFL seasons of a team keeping its head coach after he won two or fewer games in at least his third season on the job.
Will the Giants make Daboll the second to be spared at the end of their miserable 100th anniversary season?
And, just as critically, will general manager Joe Schoen be retained?
Will Schoen be judged separately despite joining the Giants at the same time as Daboll and working collaboratively with his handpicked coach on personnel decisions?
In order to put the decision facing Giants owner John Mara into context, The Post researched the 47 teams that have finished with a record of 2-14 or worse since the NFL expanded to a 16-game schedule in 1978.
Eighteen of the 47 were led by a head coach with at least three seasons on the job, and 26 were led by a GM/lead executive (with no ownership stake) who was at least three seasons into his tenure, according to Pro Football Reference’s database.
McKay, who was in his eighth season as the first-ever head coach of the Buccaneers in 1983, is the only one of those 18 coaches who survived.
He lasted one more season (6-10) before resigning.
Meanwhile, 10 of those 26 general managers returned for at least one more season after overseeing a train wreck similar to the Giants, who have lost a franchise record 10 straight games and face the prospects of finishing 0-9 at home and 2-15 overall.
So, history shows Schoen has a better chance to stay put … but the warning is that there are precious few examples where that actually proved to be the correct decision.
The NFL’s track record in these spots would align with the Giants’ thinking if Mara goes down the path of maintaining front office continuity while making a coaching change.
It would be the third time in a decade that the Giants tried that route, after sticking with Jerry Reese while splitting with Tom Coughlin in 2016 and giving Dave Gettleman a longer leash than the ousted Pat Shurmur in 2020.
Head coach history
Since McKay was the only one afforded extra patience, how many of the 17 coaches who were let go in Daboll’s positions got the last laugh?
John Fox and Gary Kubiak overcame nightmare finishes with the 2010 Panthers and 2013 Texans, respectively, to both lead the Broncos to Super Bowls only two seasons apart.
Fox lost his, while Kubiak won his.
Jim Caldwell, who was fired on the heels of going 2-14 in 2011 just two years after coaching the Colts to a Super Bowl, went on to have the best winning percentage by any Lions coach since 1956 before he was fired again.
Those are the three strongest arguments that a mistake was made.
Other notable names who were not spared include two-time Super Bowl winner George Seifert, whose championship pedigree with the 49ers did not help him when he went 1-15 at the third-year helm of the 2001 Panthers.
New Yorkers will recognize former Jets head coach Herm Edwards (who couldn’t overcome 2-14 with the 2008 Chiefs) and Steve Spagnuolo.
Spagnuolo was the Giants defensive coordinator both before and after a stint with the Rams that ended with a 2-14 record in his third year in 2011.
He went 1-3 as Giants interim head coach in 2017.
General manager history
First, four general managers who also own their team were omitted from the 26-team research.
Of the 16 GMs who did not return, none went on to make their former team regret it, though one is a Hall of Famer: Bobby Beathard, who built two Super Bowl winners in Washington during the 1980s, retired after a 1-15 season with the 2000 Chargers.
Former 49ers GM Trent Baalke — who is on the hot seat with the Jaguars as this season wraps up — is the only one of the 16 who even got a subsequent chance to call shots.
That is troubling (to say the least) for the argument to keep Schoen.
Of the 10 instances with a reprieved GM, McKay’s right-hand man Phil Krueger accounts for three examples in 1983, 1985 and 1986, though he technically answered to the head coach in a reverse power structure until 1991.
Of the remaining seven, four teams made a clear mistake by sticking with the status quo and ended up making a change within the next two years anyway.
The case is a bit stickier in three cases: Russ Thomas led the Lions to the playoffs twice after overcoming a 2-14 season in 1979, but ultimately went 54-81-1 over the rest of his tenure; Rick Smith oversaw a Texans’ rebound from 2-14 in 2013 to three straight 9-7 seasons before exiting after another bottoming out; the Oilers’ Ladd Herzog won five games or fewer in five straight seasons before his long rebuild eventually led to three straight playoff appearances to end his tenure.
If history is any indication, that’s the level of upside the Giants can look forward to if all or part of this regime remains intact for Year 4.