What’s behind Brian Daboll’s magic?

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — On a table in the head coach’s office is a deck of cards, face-down.

Cut the deck in half and pull both top cards, Brian Daboll says, then split one of the half decks and pull the two top cards again.

“Now flip all four cards,” he says.

Every one is an ace.

What Daboll is doing in this office is magic.

He took over a team that went 61-100 with no postseason wins over the past 10 years. In his first nine games, he has guided the Giants to more victories — seven — than they had in any of their previous five seasons. He’s done it without making significant personnel additions and by bringing something out of quarterback Daniel Jones that no one had seen.

Magic, no doubt. But it isn’t so mystifying once you know the magician’s secret.

Shortly after the Giants hired Daboll last winter, he introduced himself to many of his players, including star running back Saquon Barkley, with card tricks. He told Barkley to pick a card, memorize it and put it back in the deck.

Daboll then pulled a card — was this it? No. He did it three more times, the same result each time. Barkley thought Daboll had no magic, but that’s when Daboll offered to bet Barkley $20 that he could produce the card. Barkley accepted and Daboll pulled the correct card. Daboll didn’t collect the debt, but he earned something more significant: Barkley’s respect.

Card tricks were a means of survival for Daboll in the blue-collar suburban Buffalo neighborhood where he grew up. Older kids messed with him until he learned he could disarm them with a deck of cards.

Daboll was born to a 19-year-old mother, Nancy Rappl, and never knew his father. He was raised by his grandmother and grandfather, Chris and Ruth Kirsten, or “Pops” and “Pew,” the name Daboll’s young children bestowed on Ruth after the sound she made while smelling their feet.

For nearly 30 years, Pops was the groundskeeper at West Seneca West High School, where he kept the fields looking like Augusta National in springtime. He worked long hours and was devoted to his family, and his grandson never heard him make an excuse.

Pew stayed home with little Brian, and his personality became a lot like hers — competitive, driven and peppery. “I’d get a 98 on a test and get chewed out for two hours because I got that one question wrong,” Daboll says.

The greaseboard on Daboll’s office wall is for play diagrams. But written in the corner are two words that never are erased: “Pew” and “Pops.” He lost them a little more than a year ago. She was 86. He was 95. Pops went three weeks after Pew.

If not for them, none of this could have happened.

Brian Daboll with the grandparents who raised him: Pops, left, and Pew. (Courtesy of the Daboll family)

After graduating from the University of Rochester with a degree in economics, Daboll should have been bound for Wall Street. Instead, he took a job as a volunteer coach at William & Mary. When he told Pew, she asked, “Are you crazy?”

Daboll’s first break came when Nick Saban hired him as a graduate assistant at Michigan State in 1998. Daboll watched Saban closely and took notes, already preparing to be a head coach himself one day. Then he took notes on every subsequent coach he worked for, as well as others he worked with. And now, above his office desk in a cabinet are eight black binders.

There are tabs. Offseason Guidelines. OTAs. First Meeting. Last Day of Minicamp. Head Trainer. Team Doctor. Ownership. Rules and Regulations. Salary Cap. Free Agency. Combine. Draft. Vision Statement. Three Game Losing Streaks.

Many of the notes came from his years with the Patriots, where Daboll worked as a defensive assistant and wide receivers coach for seven years. Combined with a later stint in New England when he was an offensive assistant and tight ends coach, Daboll was with Bill Belichick for 10 seasons and five Super Bowl victories.

Daboll also took plenty of notes on Belichick, and also on what quarterback Tom Brady did. One of those notes was on how Brady wanted the perimeter players to be able to view their assignments through the same lens he viewed them. So when Daboll put the Giants’ offense together, he made sure the wide receivers and tight ends learned it the way Jones saw it.

In 2009, everything seemed to be coming together. Under new head coach Eric Mangini, he was named the offensive coordinator of the Browns — one step away from the top job — and wed the love of his life. Both Brian and his bride, Beth, came into their new union with children from previous marriages — Mark and Aiden from Beth, Christian and Haven from Brian. Two more children, Avery and Luke, came along later, to perfect their blended family.

Daboll’s experience with the Browns was anything but perfect. After two seasons, he was fired along with the rest of the Browns staff. Daboll was hired to lead the Dolphins’ offense under Tony Sparano but was again fired with the rest of the staff, this time after just one year. He was the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator in 2012, but the following January, he was out of a job again.

Daboll’s four-year winning percentage as an offensive coordinator was .281, and he wondered if he ever would become a head coach. His career clock was ticking, louder, faster, louder. “It hardened him a little,” Beth says.

Humbled and in need of healing, Daboll returned to his coaching roots with the Patriots.

“He wanted answers to questions,” Beth says. “Why isn’t my play calling working? What are the Patriots doing that I didn’t take with me? What did I take for granted?”

After four years in New England, Daboll reunited with Saban as his offensive coordinator at Alabama. As a college assistant, he stopped concerning himself with becoming a head coach, focusing instead on connecting with players like quarterbacks Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa to bring out their best.

“He saw what they were coming from before college, how they had been treated and what their mindset was,” Beth says. “It rejuvenated his love for teaching the game. It was a refresh and a reset, and it changed his heart.”

Daboll was part of a national championship at Alabama, which put his career back on an upward trajectory. He returned to Buffalo, where he helped develop Josh Allen into one of the NFL’s preeminent players. In the process, he became recognized as one of the game’s most respected offensive minds and a legitimate head coaching candidate.

In Buffalo, Daboll saw value in how Bills coach Sean McDermott handled certain aspects of his team, including his implementation of analytics. The Bills employ a director of football research and strategy and a game management coach, so Daboll decided to adopt the same structure with the Giants.

Ty Siam, a 34-year-old from Cornell, is the Giants’ director of football data and innovation, and Cade Knox, a 25-year-old former Harvard wide receiver, is Daboll’s game manager. Daboll spends as much time with the two of them as any coach on his staff. Early in the week, they study tape and discuss fourth-down strategy, two-point conversions, two-minute and four-minute offenses and special teams.

Daboll meets with them again on Thursdays, reviewing 60-70 situations across the league and discussing the best responses based on probabilities. Before he leaves his stadium office for the start of a game, he reviews a report prepared by Siam and Knox. By kickoff, Daboll says he knows what he will do in any situation, though he still has headset communication with both.

Whereas many coaches struggle with game management, Daboll has been gold. All seven of the Giants’ victories have been one-score wins, including their season-opening victory over the Titans. Before they took the field for that game, Daboll decided that if the Giants scored late and trailed by one, he would call for a two-point conversion. He did, and Jones connected with Barkley for the victory.

Daboll dedicated that win to Pew and Pops.

He was told “thanks but no thanks” after head coaching interviews with the Browns, Jets, Chargers, Dolphins and Bears. He was fired three times and waited 25 years for his shot at the top job. But where he came from, the places he’s been, the people who touched him — they are all part of Daboll’s magic.

“I’m very grateful it took so long now,” the 47-year-old says. “I was blessed to be a part of some really great teams. And I’m almost as thankful for some of the challenges I’ve had in my career, where I’ve had to learn how to deal with adversity, losses and criticism because you get that every day in this chair. Those things help me more than some of the successes I’ve been a part of.”

Around his neck is a chain with two pendants. One has Pops’ thumbprint. The other is an urn with Pew’s ashes and her thumbprint. “Maybe they couldn’t help when they were here on earth,” Beth says. “But they’ve done it from above.”

Almost every coach from the Belichick tree has tried to impersonate Belichick. Most have done a pretty good job at various aspects — except for the winning. Daboll found the sweet spot between taking from Belichick and not trying to be him.

Part of Daboll’s magic is that he is his own man.

First-time head coaches usually hire as many friends for their staff as possible. Daboll wanted opinions other than his own. Every time he hired an assistant, that coach became part of the next search committee. By the time the Giants filled the last position on their staff, 19 coaches were in on the interviews.

Daboll was sold on hiring a couple of candidates until he was talked out of it by other assistants. He ended up with three coordinators he had never worked with. He has had a previous employment connection with only 28 percent of his coaches.

It is not unusual for a first-time head coach to come on strong with their own ideas. Daboll, on the other hand, sought input from his team leaders on New York’s offseason schedule. He addressed players’ concerns without compromising what was most critical, according to Giants safety and captain Julian Love.

Some coaches are more committed to their systems than their marriages. Players who don’t fit — even highly skilled ones — often are casualties. That’s not Daboll. From Belichick, he learned to “use your best players any way you can to help you win,” which helps explain his creative deployment of Barkley this season.

“That’s one of his unique traits,” says Giants offensive line coach Bobby Johnson, who followed Daboll from the Bills. “He’s not going to try to force a square peg into a round hole. It’s what tools do I have, how do I maximize those?”

Of the 16 other offensive-minded head coaches in the NFL, 14 call their own plays. Daboll was lauded for his game-planning and play-calling for the Bills. It figured he would call plays for the Giants, but Daboll — who during his career as an assistant has worked with every position group on offense and defense, as well as special teams — sought the advice of four accomplished former NFL head coaches, each of whom recommended that he not call plays.

So he decided to be a head coach, not an offensive coordinator running a team.

“I know the amount of preparation it takes to get ready to call a game,” Daboll says. “I would say it’s very significant. I wanted to spend a lot of time with each unit, going through how I see the game to give us a chance to win but letting them do their jobs.”

There is, he admits, the temptation to dabble in the decisions of first-time play caller Mike Kafka, but Daboll says he has yet to overrule him. That is not to say he has no influence. In the early part of the week, Daboll typically fills 15-20 pages of a legal pad with game plan notes on offense, defense and special teams, then presents those thoughts to each coordinator, dividing his time between the three phases. During the game, he talks to his coordinators, especially Kafka, between series.

And while he gives his assistants autonomy, they know they better get it right.

“When something goes wrong, he gets very animated and he hits you with some volume,” Johnson says. “He’s got a temper. He’s like a teapot. When he’s got a question when we’re watching tape, he wants an answer and he wants it right now. You learn very quickly that ‘I don’t know’ is not an answer.”

“I’m fiery, intense,” Brian Daboll says. “And I’m not ashamed of it.” (Brad Penner / USA Today)

On the Giants’ first possession of their second preseason game, Daboll went for it on fourth-and-1 from the Cincinnati 48. Giants running back Antonio Williams was stuffed for no gain, and before the players were off the ground, Johnson knew what was coming.

“BOBBY!” he heard in his headset. “BOBBY!

Johnson moved quickly to examine the play on his tablet and saw a red-faced Daboll charging toward him using language as blue as his pullover. Johnson promptly explained the problem was the tight end missed his block. And with that, Daboll pivoted and stormed off in search of tight ends coach Andy Bischoff.

“ANDY!”

“Different people I’ve worked for are calm and relaxed,” Daboll says. “That ain’t me. I’m fiery, intense. And I’m not ashamed of it.”

Giants GM Joe Schoen hired Daboll, with whom he’d worked the previous four years in Buffalo, a week after being named to his position last January. “He’ll have some remorse sometimes maybe for blacking out during a game and going rogue,” Schoen says of his hand-picked coach. “But it all comes from being uber competitive.”

Daboll is so competitive, in fact, that he regularly challenges players to darts, pool, bags, basketball shooting contests and ping-pong — sometimes with his off hand. Daboll often asks if they want to bet.

“He’s a hustler,” Johnson says. “When he bets, he doesn’t have much chance of losing. Either he’s watched you do it and knows you’re not that good at it, or he knows he can rattle you, or the deck is stacked in his favor. If he loses, he’s not going to say, ‘OK, I lost.’ He’ll keep competing until he wins.”

Love says at one point, Daboll bragged that he was undefeated in shooting contests for five weeks. “I tell them I will beat their ass,” Daboll says. “And when I do, I’ll talk sh– to them.”

Daboll has adopted the New York Rangers as his hockey team, and dating back to last season they are 12-0 with him in attendance. “He’s like the Rangers’ new mascot,” says Schoen, who has gone to games with him.

When they show him on the video boards at Madison Square Garden, the crowd acts like he’s Billy Joel, but Daboll isn’t comfortable being a big shot.

After being hired by the Bills, Pew gave him guff when he moved into a prestigious neighborhood instead of the working-class area he came from, and he felt a little self-conscious about it. When training camp practices were open to the public, he engaged fans. Some told him their names. And when they came back for subsequent practices, he remembered their names.

After the Giants beat the Jaguars in Jacksonville, a crowd of Giants fans gathered near a secured area where the team boarded its buses. Daboll emerged wearing a sweatsuit and smoking a cigar, wading into the crowd for high-fives, selfies and autographs.

Daboll loves a free T-shirt. “He’s so proud when he gets one,” his wife says. “He’ll say, ‘I got this for free. Did you see this?'”

The Daboll family, from left: Aiden, wife Beth, Christian, Luke (on lap), Brian, Haven, Avery and Marky. (Courtesy of the Daboll family)

Daboll laughs at himself. When he’s about to have his photo taken, he says, “Get my thin side.”

As a young man, Daboll weighed 150 pounds. He had a six-pack and thick, long hair. For proof, he produces a photo on his phone. “One of my old friends sent it to me,” he says. “And he asked, ‘What the hell happened to you?’ I told him, ‘Twenty-five years of coaching.'”

Daboll started shaving his head early in his coaching life when a bald spot kept expanding. The rest of him has also expanded, partly because he is a stress eater. His weight fluctuates. In September, he lost 38 pounds. But since, well, there has been stress.

He connects with everyone. At his daily breakfast with the team’s groundskeeper, assistant equipment manager and assistant trainer, the stories are loud and the laughs are hearty. “Dabes,” as everyone calls him, makes it a point to walk down the hall and visit with people in marketing, community relations and human resources. He reaches out to his players throughout the day, but he’s more of a FaceTime guy than a text guy.

He has been known to invite people over to the house for dinner at a moment’s notice, often without telling his wife. After the Giants beat the Ravens, Daboll asked a few people to stop by. “Next thing I knew, there were 50 people over,” Beth says. “Impromptu.”

As much as Daboll is about people, alone time is important to him, too. No matter when he returns home from the office, he walks out to his yard, fires up a cigar and spends about 35 minutes in the hot tub. It is a time for decompression, reflection and contemplation. There are nights when he ponders how he got here, when he got here and why.

“Brian is so authentic,” Beth says. “I feel he can be too authentic at times.”

His authenticity might be what held him back, but it’s making him soar now. And that’s the secret to his magic.

“I’m an ordinary Joe,” Daboll says. “It’s who I always have been and who I always will be.”

(Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)