Sports
Brian Daboll makes plea for keeping his job after Giants snap 10-game losing streak
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — This wasn’t Joe Judge’s infamous 11-minute rant late in the 2021 season. But as far as a Brian Daboll news conference goes, the New York Giants coach was exceptionally expansive after his team snapped a 10-game losing streak with a 45-33 win over the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday.
Daboll, who typically mutters his way through monosyllabic answers after games, raved about the character and work ethic of his team Sunday. Much like Judge’s epic rant three years ago, it appeared Daboll’s message was intended for the ears of ownership, who will decide his fate after next week’s season finale.
“I’ve had a lot of confidence in the people in our building and the way they operate,” Daboll said. “Not the results, obviously, but coming back from injuries that are pretty good injuries, and they fight back to perform at the end of the year. I’ve been on some other teams — it’s a credit to the coaches, battling through it with the players who are injured, who come back, who compete, who work hard every day, are in early and have extra meetings in December when you don’t have a very good record.”
Judge’s impassioned soliloquy backfired, and he was fired 10 days later after going 4-13 in his second season. Daboll avoided going off the rails like Judge, but it remains to be seen if ownership will hear his message about keeping the team fighting to produce a result like Sunday when an offensive explosion prevented the Giants’ first winless season at home in 50 years.
There was no tell from John Mara after the game, as he continued his weekly ritual of declining comment when approached by reporters. But Mara made it clear in October that he doesn’t want to clean house again, so Daboll needs to take advantage of every opportunity to convince his boss of the value of continuity.
“There’s a process that we believe in, and they keep fighting through it,” Daboll said. “I’m just happy that they can have a smile on their face and get a win. I’m proud of the guys. I was proud of them in some of those games where we lost. We just got to keep battling through it.”
A theme of Daboll’s news conference was the importance of “good quarterback play.” Daboll got hired three years ago largely based on his efforts grooming Bills quarterback Josh Allen from a raw prospect into a perennial MVP candidate.
Daboll won the NFL Coach of the Year award in his first season in New York after coaxing a career-best season out of Daniel Jones. That magic touch disappeared after the Giants committed to Jones with a four-year, $160 million contract. Jones was released in November after two dismal seasons.
Backups Drew Lock, Tommy DeVito and Tim Boyle were even worse, contributing to the Giants’ ranking last in the league in scoring with Daboll as the offensive play caller this season. But that changed Sunday when Lock completed 17-of-23 passes for 309 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. Lock added a rushing touchdown as the Giants scored their most points since 2015.
“I think if you get good quarterback play, you have an opportunity in every game,” Daboll said.
Drew Lock runs it in
📺: FOX pic.twitter.com/5m2v3z0zWd
— New York Giants (@Giants) December 29, 2024
Daboll’s comments about the need for better quarterback play came at the same time as reports emphasizing that the coach and general manager Joe Schoen aren’t a package deal. That’s an interesting wrinkle, as the GM’s job security appears more stable despite the Giants assembling a dreadful quarterback room in a make-or-break season for Daboll.
Ironically, Lock’s performance hindered Daboll’s chances of getting a top quarterback in the draft if he returns for a fourth season. The Giants would have been assured of the No. 1 pick if they lost their final two games, giving them their choice between top quarterbacks Shedeur Sanders and Cam Ward in the draft.
GO DEEPER
Patriots in control of 2025 NFL Draft No. 1 pick after Giants’ win
The win pushed the Giants to the fourth spot in the draft order with one week remaining. It will be trickier to land a quarterback from that spot, but Daboll can only focus on the present.
“That’s how the offense needs to perform,” Daboll said. “That’s how the quarterback needs to perform. So when you do that and you win the turnover ratio, you have a chance to score points and win.”
Daboll can’t be absolved from the poor quarterback play, however. It’s a stain on his reputation as a supposed quarterback whisperer that it took until Week 17 for his team to score more than 30 points.
“It’s not an easy position to play,” Daboll said. “Look, we all got to do better. You can put that on me.”
The 3-13 Giants have one game remaining against the Eagles, who have nothing to play for in the finale after clinching the NFC East title and the NFC’s No. 2 seed. The result of that game, which will likely be played against Philadelphia’s backups, shouldn’t impact ownership’s decision on the futures of Daboll and Schoen. But it could only help Daboll if he’s able to deliver another strong performance before ownership convenes to make the call on his fate. And he made sure Sunday that it’s known that he sees promising signs despite the dismal record.
“I see these coaches every day come in and are consistent,” Daboll said. “It’s hard to be consistent in an inconsistent league when things go — it’s not great. We haven’t had a good record. I firmly acknowledge that, and I accept responsibility for that. But their commitment to doing things the right way, day in and day out, staying late and putting together plans, much like the players when we’re down and we got two wins — we have the right kind of people.”
Here are more takeaways from Sunday’s win:
No quit
Sunday’s outcome should dismiss any notion that the Giants were tanking during their 10-game losing streak. The Giants were just that bad.
The reality is it’s hard for an NFL team to lose every week despite the Giants making it look easy at times this season. A performance like Sunday was inevitable. At some point, a player as talented as rookie wide receiver Malik Nabers was going to have a breakout like his seven catches for 171 yards and two touchdowns.
Nabers was in the lineup despite what Daboll called a “pretty good” toe injury that had him listed as questionable. Nabers is intensely competitive and also has individual accomplishments to chase. He has 104 catches and 1,140 yards this season after Sunday’s monster performance.
Outside linebacker Brian Burns has been banged up all season, but he continued to play hard Sunday. He tallied three tackles for a loss and pressured Colts quarterback Joe Flacco into a game-sealing interception by cornerback Dru Phillips.
INT for the rook!
📺: FOX pic.twitter.com/Yzs0eESBpF
— New York Giants (@Giants) December 29, 2024
Burns’ hustle was evidenced when he chased Colts running back Jonathan Taylor all the way across the field on a third-and-1 pitch at the Giants’ 23-yard line midway through the third quarter. Burns’ pursuit caused Taylor to go out of bounds for no gain. The Giants stuffed Taylor on the next play for a pivotal turnover on downs.
It was the type of effort that confirmed that players will never be involved in tanking for a draft pick.
“This isn’t basketball; it’s not golf; it’s not tennis — in football, you get hit. I’m not going to go out there and just let people tee off on me just to tank,” said wide receiver Darius Slayton, who caught a 32-yard touchdown pass Sunday. “At the end of the day, we’re always trying to win. I think today showed that fight.”
Though players and coaches are going to give their full effort each week, the ramifications of Sunday’s win can’t be ignored. The Giants’ three wins with DeVito last season cost them the opportunity to draft Jayden Daniels or Drake Maye.
It’s debatable if Sanders and Ward are in the same tier as those quarterbacks, but the prospect of the No. 1 pick had been the light at the end of the tunnel during this miserable season. Just don’t expect players to share fans’ anguish over Sunday’s win damaging the team’s draft position.
“I don’t believe in (tanking) at all,” tackle Jermaine Eluemunor said. “I get that when you have a losing season the best thing to do, in the fans’ eyes, is just to keep losing so you can get draft position. But then you start to create a culture of losing, and that’s not what you want to do. That’s why you have a GM. You have all those assistants, and you have all those scouts to get yourself in position to get who you want in the draft.”
Good Nabers
Look on the bright side of potentially missing out on a top quarterback prospect: Nabers may be so talented that he doesn’t need an elite QB. The No. 6 pick in this year’s draft had his best game as a pro Sunday, flashing the yards-after-catch ability that made him a star at LSU.
Nabers did most of the work on his two touchdowns. He took a screen from Lock in the first quarter and broke a tackle to race for a 31-yard score. The Giants oddly didn’t target Nabers on their first three possessions of the second half, but they wisely got him involved early in the fourth quarter. Nabers caught a simple curl route, split two defenders and outran everyone for a 59-yard touchdown.
LEEEEK 59-yard TD
📺: FOX pic.twitter.com/TLYk5pUqdX
— New York Giants (@Giants) December 29, 2024
Nabers added a leaping 34-yard grab on an underthrown fade and a precision 19-yard catch on a back-shoulder fade that set up Lock’s 5-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter.
“What a beast,” Lock said. “He’s going to be great for a really long time.”
Fellow rookie running back Tyrone Tracy contributed to the explosive attack, breaking a 40-yard run in the first quarter behind quality blocking. It was tough sledding for the rest of the day for Tracy, who finished with 20 carries for 59 yards.
Tracy increased his rushing total to 780 yards and his receiving total to 277 yards. That gives him 1,057 yards from scrimmage, making Tracy and Nabers the third rookie teammates to gain 1,000 yards from scrimmage in NFL history.
Grounded
Cloudy weather spared Mara the embarrassment of planes flying over the stadium bearing messages about the state of the franchise for the third straight home game. Disgusted fans reportedly had ordered three different banners, including one that would have carried a message imploring Mara to “clean house or sell the team.” The planes were grounded Sunday, but it’s a good bet they’ll be flying in Philadelphia next week if weather permits.
(Photo: Vincent Carchietta / Imagn Images)
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Oba Femi and Brock Lesnar’s feud will come to a head at SummerSlam in August, and the showdown has the potential to be WWE’s match of the year.
Femi beat Lesnar at WrestleMania 42 and led to “The Beast Incarnate” deciding to retire – at least for a moment – at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Lesnar made a dramatic return a few weeks later, challenging and beating Femi at Clash in Italy.
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Oba Femi looks on during Monday Night RAW at Allstate Arena on July 6, 2026, in Chicago, Illinois. (Melina Pizano/WWE via Getty Images)
At SummerSlam, Femi and Lesnar will do battle inside a Hell in a Cell.
WWE Hall of Famer John Bradshaw Layfield called the next meeting between Femi and Lesnar a “generational matchup.”
“I’ve never seen anything like Oba – well, I have. I’ve seen Brock,” he told Fox News Digital. “It’s very much the carbon copy of Brock coming in. Brock coming in was like, oh my God, who is this guy? The guy can even talk, and he’s gonna be one of the biggest stars in wrestling. Not only could he talk, he’s a really smart guy. Brock became one of the biggest draws in professional wrestling. He came one of the biggest draws in UFC. It’s an unbelievable story, and now you got somebody who can rival that character.
Brock Lesnar in action against Oba Femi during “Monday Night Raw” at TD Garden on March 23, 2026, in Boston, Massachusetts. (Michael Owens/WWE via Getty Images)
“This Oba Femi comes out with the silly little walk he does. Everyone kinda does it, it’s like The Bushwackers. But the whole arena does it. I was in Vegas and I didn’t want to go to the matches and deal with the traffic and deal with the backstage area, and so I kinda just watched it in a sports bar. I stood in the back where nobody could recognize me, and as soon as Oba came out, the entire sports bar was sitting there doing that Oba Femi dance. The guy is just unbelievably over.
“I really think that somewhere in the NFL this year, you’re going to see an entire NFL arena doing this dance. You’re gonna have somebody like Saquon Barkley or ‘King’ (Derrick Henry) or some of these guys do this dance, and it’s infectious. Once one of them does, one of these great running backs or wide receivers, or somebody scores a touchdown, that’s when I think you’re gonna see entire arenas doing it. I just think Oba Femi is lightning in a bottle and Brock has always been that way. This is, to me, a generational matchup.”
Brock Lesnar and Oba Femi face off during WrestleMania 42: Night 2 at Allegiant Stadium on April 19, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Georgiana Dallas/WWE via Getty Images)
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SummerSlam will take place on Aug. 1 and 2 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
Sports
Commentary: ‘I don’t want any handouts.’ Amid the Angels’ drought, a starry homecoming for Mike Trout
Mike Trout last played in an All-Star Game seven years ago. It’s crazy, really. The best player of the previous decade, the link that ties Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols to Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, has not taken an All-Star at-bat this decade.
Injuries, mostly. And he turns 35 next month.
Next week’s All-Star Game takes place in Philadelphia, about 40 miles north of Trout’s hometown of Millville, N.J. Major League Baseball reserves a potential All-Star roster spot or two each summer for distinguished players: Bryce Harper and Justin Verlander this year, Clayton Kershaw last year, Pujols and Miguel Cabrera in past years.
That could have been Trout’s spot this summer: a worthy honor for a three-time most valuable player, a local hero feted on the national stage the Angels have failed to provide him.
“I wouldn’t have done it,” Trout said.
Not even at home?
“It’s an honor to get voted in and represent the American League,” he said. “For me, I don’t want any handouts.”
Trout is an All-Star for the 12th time, the old-fashioned way: He earned it.
Fans voted him into the starting lineup, with the most final-round votes of any AL outfielder. His peers voted him as one of the top three outfielders in the AL.
“It means a lot,” he said. “I’ve been through a lot of hurdles, a lot of adversity. I put some hard work in, and I did not let up. I could have easily got down on myself and not pushed through it and not come back.
“I know what I am capable of. I know I have the confidence to get back to the player I used to be.”
His .874 OPS entering play Thursday ranks second among AL outfielders, a career season for many players. In 11 of his 14 full seasons — all but the previous three — he has posted a higher OPS.
In April, in a four-game series against the New York Yankees, Trout hit five home runs and drove in nine runs.
“Everything was clicking,” he said. “When I first came up, that’s how I felt the whole season.
“Just to be able to get that feeling back, that little spark, to know it’s still in there, it makes you feel pretty good.”
For him, so does playing in Philadelphia. The first time he played there with the Angels, Millville basically closed down for the night, and just about everyone in town boarded a bus to the game. Then Trout had an exceptionally rare experience, a visiting player cheered at the home of the boo.
Mark Gubicza can testify to that. Gubicza, the two-time All-Star pitcher and now the Angels’ television analyst, grew up in Philadelphia.
“I don’t care if you were God himself, if you were wearing a different color uniform, I was still booing you,” Gubicza said. “But he was cheered.”
Still is. Trout is a diehard Philadelphia Eagles fan, with his season tickets not in some climate-controlled luxury suite but along the sideline.
“The players all walk by him and say ‘Trouty!’ ” Gubicza said. “Before they all go out to get their heads beat in, they’re all saying hi.
“He’s not one of those guys that comes there to be seen. He’s going there to root. That’s why they love him: He’s one of us.”
Said Trout: “I know how passionate I am about the Eagles. From my experience as an Eagles fan, it’s just different.
“It’s like win or die.”
It’s not like that in Southern California, where almost no one listens to sports-talk radio, and where a nice day is always a day away.
No one would begrudge Trout for living year-round along the Orange County coast. (OK, maybe Philadelphia fans would.)
Roy Hallenbeck, Trout’s high school coach, remembered visiting years ago on what he called “a perfect day” and asking Trout how he could ever get tired of all that sunshine.
“Yeah, coach, I couldn’t live here,” Trout told him. “‘I need my seasons.”
Trout built a family home near his boyhood home. He built his Trout National golf resort, with a course designed by Tiger Woods, in Millville.
He is as loyal to the Angels as he is to Millville. He appreciates the team that “took a chance on a kid from a little town in southern New Jersey” and signed him to two nine-figure contract extensions.
Trout was the last Angels player to take a postseason at-bat, in 2014. Even amid baseball’s longest playoff drought, he still considers Anaheim a special place, and always will.
“It’s where it all began,” Trout said. “I think the fuel of people doubting us kind of makes it more of a fire for me to try to get back to the playoffs. I think that’s the biggest key for me.
“Could I take the easy way out and just leave? Yeah. But I think — I said this last year around this time, but it’s the same feeling I’ve been having — I really haven’t sat down and talked to anybody about it specifically, but I know there’s a time where, if things change, who knows? I don’t know. But, for me, right now, my focus is on trying to get this club back in the playoffs.”
At the All-Star Game, Trout might well hear Phillies fans beseech him to come play for the home team. However, Hallenbeck said, the hometown folks no longer are as strident in that long-held wish.
“I think the overriding sentiment of most people I talk with, even Phillies fans, is we would all — as people that know him, love him and care for him — love to watch him play relevant baseball in August and September,” Hallenbeck said. “It doesn’t matter where. It doesn’t matter who. Just being relevant late in the season would be something we would all love to see.
“Hopefully, it’s with the Angels. They’ve been so good to him. We’d love to see it there.”
So would we. In the meantime, in the absence of a World Series, Trout deserves to enjoy his homecoming game.
Sports
London descends into disorder as Morocco fans flood streets after World Cup elimination by France
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Public unrest began in parts of London late Thursday night, and it appears Morocco’s exit from the 2026 FIFA World Cup at the hands of France is the reason.
France took down Morocco 2-0, eliminating the African country for the second consecutive tournament, this time in a quarterfinal match.
As a result, many feared Paris would erupt into riots, especially after the chaos that followed Paris Saint-Germain’s UEFA Champions League victory over Arsenal in May.
Instead, images and videos from Edgware Road in northwest London showed police clashing with large crowds as smoke billowed through the streets and debris littered the roadway.
A police vehicle is parked in a road as people from pro-Palestinian activist groups gather near the Edgware United Synagogue during a demonstration against the “Great Israeli Real Estate Event” organized by real-estate agency My Home in Israel, which markets property in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, in London, Britain, June 14, 2026. (Toby Shepheard)
Riot police, equipped with shields and body armor, tried to contain the crowds as they clashed with people launching fireworks and throwing debris. One video also appeared to show an officer down.
KYLIAN MBAPPÉ, OUSMANE DEMBÉLÉ FIRE FRANCE INTO WORLD CUP SEMIFINALS WITH WIN OVER MOROCCO
It’s unknown what happened to the officer who was down on the asphalt or how he was injured.
Fans waved Moroccan flags in the middle of the streets, which held up traffic. Some even jumped on top of vehicles trying to get through the area.
Moroccan fans in the stands before a FIFA World Cup 2026 quarterfinal match between France and Morocco at Boston Stadium July 9, 2026, in Foxborough, Mass. (Richard Sellers/SportsphotoAllstar)
Similar scenes unfolded after Egypt’s World Cup exit, when Argentina rallied for a controversial 3-2 victory that featured several disputed officiating decisions.
Paris, on the other hand, looked more like a city celebrating than one on the brink of a riot. Supporters of both France and Morocco flooded the streets, slowing traffic in several parts of the city.
One video showed horns blasting from cars with French and Moroccan flags out the windows on the L’avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Supporters on the side of the road, waving their own flags, joined in on the celebration.
France’s Kylian Mbappé scored his eighth goal of this World Cup, which ties him for the most with Argentina’s Lionel Messi. Ousmane Dembélé also scored in the second half for France in the 2-0 win over Morocco.
It’s the third straight semifinal appearance for France, while Morocco still made World Cup history despite the loss. After becoming the first African country to reach the quarterfinals and semifinals in World Cup history in 2022, Morocco added to that by becoming the first-ever African nation to reach more than one quarterfinal.
Moroccan fans react while attending a watch party for the World Cup round of 8 match between France and Morocco in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 9, 2026. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP)
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Morocco’s exit means there are no more African nations alive in the World Cup. France will be taking on the winner of Spain and Belgium, while England and Norway and Argentina and Switzerland face off in the quarterfinals.
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