Alumni Gazette

GIANT JOB: A onetime Rochester defensive back, Brian Daboll brings a highly regarded coaching history to his role as the Giants’ head coach. (Photo: AP Photo/Brian Minichillo)

Longtime NFL coach Brian Daboll ’97 is taking his football acumen from one end of the state to the other as he begins a tenure as the head coach of the New York Giants.

The Giants announced in January that the team had hired Daboll, who has been the offensive coordinator for the Buffalo Bills for the last three years.

Under Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott, Daboll is credited with helping turn the Bills into American Conference title contenders.

His success at Buffalo, along with coaching positions with several NFL teams, has made Daboll a hot prospect for a head coaching position in the league for the past few years.

Over the course of his career, Daboll has won five Super Bowl rings while on the coaching staff of the New England Patriots, and he has also been an offensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns, the Miami Dolphins, and the Kansas City Chiefs.

In 2017, he was the offensive coordinator for the University of Alabama, rejoining one of his early-career mentors, Nick Saban, and helping the Crimson Tide to a national title.

At Buffalo, he led the Bills to the AFC title game in 2020 and was named the NFL’s Offensive Coordinator of the Year for the 2019–20 season. The Bills’ 2021 season ended in Kansas City, when Buffalo came up short in an overtime thriller in the AFC divisional playoff game.

At Rochester, Daboll, an economics major, played defensive back before an injury sidelined him. He turned to helping the football team’s coaching staff while still an undergraduate.