The Giants’ bizarre field goal decision should cost Brian Daboll his job

The New York Giants were poised to hand the Chicago Bears a crushing loss for their playoff hopes in Week 10 at Soldier Field. The Giants were up by a touchdown early in the fourth quarter when they had the ball at Chicago’s two-yard-line on 3rd-and-goal. The Bears stuffed them and the Giants settled for a field goal that put them up two scores with just over 10 minutes remaining in the game.

As the kick went through, a flag appeared. The Bears had too many men on the field. The Giants could have had another try on fourth down from the half-yard-line, but instead Brian Daboll chose to keep the points on the board. FOX announcer Greg Olsen immediately second-guessed Daboll’s decision, and he was proven right as Caleb Williams delivered the Bears another heart-stopping comeback win.

The Bears beat the Giants, 24-20, a second straight miracle comeback win to keep their postseason dreams alive. Williams deserves most of the credit for putting the Bears on his back and willing them to victory on Chicago’s final two drives in the fourth quarter, but the team should also send a thank you card to Daboll for deciding to kick the field goal.

The conventional wisdom in football says never take the points off the board. The analytics say go for it every time in that situation. According to Aaron Schatz, New York’s kick was the first 19-yard field goal of the year that was not on the final play before halftime. ESPN’s Seth Waldron has a decision model for fourth down decisions, and it decisively said to go for it in that situation.

Imagine kicking a field goal on 4th-and-goal from the half-yard-line and losing the game. Daboll did it, and it’s one reason why he’s probably going to lose his job as head coach of the Giants very soon.

Daboll’s Giants keep finding a way to lose very winnable games, and this is the most frustrating example yet.

Olsen was hammering the Giants for the field goal decision on the broadcast, and he ended up being vindicated. There are plenty of critical social media posts about Olsen’s commentary on the play during the game, and all of these people look like dopes now:

Daboll was very much coaching for his job on Sunday, and he deserves to lose it after that decision. The Giants, now 2-8 after the loss, were basically already eliminated from playoff contention, and are only playing for pride. It would have been nice if Daboll trusted his team to go out and win the game, but instead he blew it, and it turned into another improbable Giants loss.

Caleb Williams should be the story of the game for overcoming so many drops by his receivers to will the Bears to victory. Daboll just give him a little push over the top with his decision-making.