Giants fire Brian Daboll after another awful meltdown

Even his discovery of Jaxson Dart as the Giants franchise quarterback couldn’t save head coach Brian Daboll from paying the ultimate price for loss after loss after loss.

The Giants fired Daboll on Monday in the aftermath of their fourth defeat this season featuring a blown double-digit lead and a fourth-quarter meltdown. In doing so, they split up the regime that was hired four years ago and started off with such promise.

General manager Joe Schoen’s job is safe despite him owning the same 20-40-1 record as Daboll, and Schoen will “lead the search for a new head coach,” the team announced.

The first decision of the new era was to elevate offensive coordinator Mike Kafka, who has interviewed for head coach vacancies with eight NFL franchises over the past three offseasons, to interim head coach.

Players in the building were informed of the change just before sources told The Post and news became public.

“The past few seasons have been nothing short of disappointing, and we have not met our expectations for this franchise,” co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch said in a joint statement. “We understand the frustrations of our fans, and we will work to deliver a significantly improved product.”

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Why pull the plug now?

The Giants grew tired of weekly improbable losses without any fixes or shows of accountability for a lack of effort or missed assignments. But Daboll added injury to insult Sunday as the final straw.

Daboll’s refusal to coach Dart into sliding on scrambles and his championing of play calls that leave the rookie quarterback susceptible to injury made the predictable happen and put the future of the franchise at risk: Dart has been checked for a concussion four times since the preseason and didn’t pass Sunday’s test.

Daboll’s four-year tenure began with a surprise 7-2 start and that 2022 season included the first Giants playoff win since the 2012 Super Bowl. He was awarded the NFL’s coach of the year — and then stopped winning altogether.

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It’s been all downhill, including an 11-33 record since the start of 2023, a 5-22 record since the start of 2024, a 3-19 record in the past 22 games and a composite 5-17-1 record against the NFC East. This is the third straight 2-8 start.

Daboll’s .336 career winning percentage is the 18th worst in NFL history among coaches with at least 50 games, but his .250 clip since 2023 would be the fifth worst. He was afforded more patience than his two-and-done predecessors Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur and Joe Judge.

The decision to keep Schoen is curious because of his roster-crippling draft whiffs on 2022 first-rounder Evan Neal, 2023 first-rounder Deonte Banks and 2023 third-rounder Jalin Hyatt (and other underperformers) that have led to big free agent spending and a salary cap space squeeze.

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Schoen also has let Daniel Jones, Saquon Barkley, Xavier McKinney, Leonard Williams, Julian Love and others out the door, though that mostly has created internal questions about coaching and why so many ex-Giants have their best years elsewhere.

As the search gets underway, it will be interesting to see if Schoen’s return is seen as an asset or a deterrent by head coach candidates, especially those with experience who might want equal say in the roster.

“We feel like Joe has assembled a good young nucleus of talent,” Mara said, “and we look forward to its development.”

Back when things were at their apex and Daboll was a New York celebrity, Mara warned Daboll, “In this business, it doesn’t take long to go from Bono to Bozo.”

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Daboll never donned a red nose, but his behavior sometimes fit the bill.

Feuding behind the scenes with defensive coordinator Wink Martindale and undercutting the defensive coaching staff led to Martindale walking out of the building in January 2024. The defense never recovered — in part because Daboll’s reputation for being hard to work for limited the desirable candidates to replace Martindale.

Sideline blowups became a regular part of Daboll’s personality, whether it was icy stares at his coordinators, screaming at team doctors or once disgustedly flipping an iPad at Jones.

Flouting of the NFL’s concussion protocol on Oct. 9 by peeking his head into the sideline medical tent to interrupt Dart’s exam cost Daboll a $100,000 fine earlier this season.

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Hired over New York native Brian Flores because of his Bills-bred relationship with Schoen and his reputation as a quarterback guru who developed Josh Allen, Daboll was a mismatched fit with the even-keeled Jones.

But Daboll found a kindred spirit in Dart and was the driving force behind the decisions to trade up and draft him in the first round and then start him much earlier than others wanted (in Week 4). The Giants are risking the rookie’s rapid development by breaking up Daboll and Dart.

But losing is always too much to overcome. Especially when your calling card — the offense, in this case — is mostly to blame: Only the Panthers have scored fewer points per game over the past three seasons.

So the Giants are making an in-season change for the second time since 1976.

The Daboll Giants set one franchise record with 10 straight losses last season and set another Sunday with their 11th straight road loss. Daboll’s struggle to correctly manage the game-day roster — particularly at kicker — has proved costly in close games.