On Sunday, the New York Giants blew another double-digit 4th quarter lead, this time to the Detroit Lions.
Head coach Brian Daboll was fired after a blown lead in Week 10 and now, following a Week 12 loss—defensive coordinator Shane Bowen is the next to be fired.
Mike Kafka has confirmed that Shane Bowen has been relieved of his duties. OLB coach Charlie Bullen will assume the defensive coordinator role.
— New York Giants (@Giants) November 24, 2025
Interim coaches are hiring interim assistants. Everything is make-believe right now for the Giants.
Also included in the make-believe, pretend vibes: the belief Shane Bowen is at fault.
GM Joe Schoen wanted Wink Martindale as his defensive coordinator—and even after his firing and replacing him with Shane Bowen—Schoen continued to build a defense around Martindale’s blitz-heavy, pressure-packed scheme—at the total cost of everything that made Shane Bowen a hireable candidate in the first place.
Shane Bowen’s Titans defense was 2nd in run-stopping in 2021 and first in 2022.
But those Titans team had run-stuffer Jeffrey Simmons up the middle and linebackers who existed exclusively to pancake running backs.
Joe Schoen, in 4 drafts, selected just one DT, Darius Alexander.
Alexander has 2.5 sacks and 4 QB hits. Like Dexter Lawrence, Alexander shines in pass rush.
All of Schoen’s acquisitions shine in pass rush.
Kayvon Thibodeaux and Abdul Carter in the draft. Rakeem Nuñez-Roches in free agency. Brian Burnes via trade.
The 2025 New York Giants defense has allowed the most rushing yards in the NFL, Saquon Barkley and Jahmyr Gibbs having the best games of their careers against them.
Joe Schoen wanted Wink and his aggressive defensive strategy but after a power struggle with Brian Daboll—Schoen replaced him with a conservative, blitz-less, careful, run-stopping specialist but continued to supply him with Martindale-esque players.
Giants Defensive Rankings under Shane Bowen
2025:
Scoring D: 27.8 PPG (30th)
Passing D: 227.8 YPG (23rd)
Rushing D: 157.2 YPG (32nd)
EPA/Play: 0.149 (31st)2024:
Scoring D: 24.4 PPG (21st)
Passing D: 210.6 YPG (8th)
Rushing D: 136.2 YPG (27th)
EPA/Play: 0.071 (29th)— Bobby Skinner (@BobbySkinner_) November 24, 2025
Shane Bowen was set up to fail.
They hired the best Italian chef and only gave him ingredients to make sushi. Shane Bowen made terrible fucking sushi.
What went wrong with Joe Schoen?
Schoen made smart choices. Acquiring Brian Burns. Drafting Malik Nabers, Cam Skattebo, Jaxson Dart, the Giants offensive core is set up for success long after Schoen is dragged from the town square, his neck in a noose tied to the back of a galloping horse.
It’s really hard to win in the NFL when your quarterback sucks.
Daniel Jones put Joe Schoen at a disadvantage from the moment Schoen signed the contract.
Jones making the playoffs in 2022, paired with his relationship to the Mara and Manning families, made it impossible not to throw the undeserving QB a contract extension.
The operation was flawed from day one.
Brian Daboll was an emotional decision-maker whose team was always less prepared than the teams across from him. Shane Bowen was asked to coach a talented unit of players who were perfect puzzle pieces in an entirely different puzzle. Previous GM, Dave Gettleman, set the team back with awful drafts, leaving Schoen with Daniel Jones’s weird ass.
I hope he finds success elsewhere but the best organizations in sports have total alignment from top to bottom. From ownership to assistant coaches.
The Giants need a new GM to hire his new coaches, creating harmony across the board.
Good luck to Joe Schoen. I’m sorry Wink Martindale was a maniac.
Thanks for reading. Let me know who you think is responsible for the Giants awful defense. Or even better, reach out and send some theories over and I’ll write a whole blog about it. Hit up ya boy on social media: Facebook. Twitter. Bluesky. Instagram.
Or shoot me an email (I refresh that thing no less than a million times a day) Deadseriousmailbag@gmail.com.
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