In the wake of a fourth-quarter debacle in Denver, Brian Daboll made the decision to retain his defensive coordinator, Shane Bowen, despite the Giants’ historic breakdown. While reminiscent of the infamous “Miracle at the Meadowlands” when Herm Edwards famously capitalized on the Giants’ inability to run out the clock, the recent “Miracle at Mile High” marks another chapter in the team’s storied past.

Daboll and Bowen remain in their positions, not solely out of compassion, but also as a strategic move for Daboll’s own job security. Having already parted ways with one defensive coordinator, Wink Martindale, dismissing Bowen after the Broncos’ 33-point fourth-quarter onslaught would strip another protective layer from Daboll. This would leave him as exposed as the Giants were defensively on Sunday.

The Giants face a pivotal moment in their season. They must either rally over the final ten games or face widespread changes. Winning some games is crucial; otherwise, it won’t just be Daboll and Bowen at risk, but potentially the entire coaching staff. While general manager Joe Schoen might survive, a continued losing streak—turning 2-5 into a 2-11 record against formidable opponents like the Eagles, 49ers, Bears, Packers, Lions, and Patriots—could spell doom for many.

Schoen, the architect behind recent roster changes, has seen key players such as Daniel Jones, Saquon Barkley, Xavier McKinney, Leonard Williams, Julian Love, Darren Waller, and Sterling Shepard leave. Though some departures were driven by salary cap constraints, not all were. McKinney, now a Packer, is a player teams avoid throwing towards; his presence might have been felt in Denver’s decisive fourth quarter.

Ultimately, the team’s fate rests on more than just new talent like Jaxson Dart. The Giants need a comprehensive effort to turn their season around and prevent a larger overhaul.

Put it another way: It’s going to take more than the presence of the kid, Jaxson Dart, to save everybody.

Bowen did everything except take a knee on that final Broncos drive. That was after the Giants once again — and stop me if you’ve heard this one before — didn’t have a placekicker worth a rip. The placekicker is still on the team, too.

When it finally was over on Sunday, it wasn’t Dart who spoke for Giants fans and it certainly wasn’t the coach. It was Brian Burns. Burns, even on a bum ankle, had played his heart out in Denver, and then screamed his head off on the way to the locker room about Bowen’s boneheaded decision to only rush Broncos quarterback Bo Nix with three defenders, giving Nix enough time to make himself a sandwich with his first big play down the field.

“Stupid ass s–t,” Burns said.

We sort of knew that already. And Daboll could frankly have saved his breath when he stepped to the podium once the game was mercifully over for his team and said that it wasn’t just one person who lost this one, and gloriously, for the Giants, “It’s a collective.” We know, Coach, we watched the game, too.

Daboll is right about something, though, even though he wasn’t right about very much in Denver after it was 26-8: It wasn’t just Bowen. As fiery and game as Dart was, and as much as he kept flinging it around after the Giants had finally coughed up the lead, he didn’t get much help from the other coordinator, Mike Kafka, either.

Understand something: Quarterbacks don’t hear just play calls sent into their helmets now. They can get more directions about the next play than actors get from Broadway director when they’re blocking out a scene. I know Dart is a rookie and rookies make rookie mistakes, it’s part of the deal. But he had to be told, and in no uncertain terms, that if there was even a hint of doubt before he threw that crushing interception, he had to eat the ball and go down. He really should have been running around end — the way Nix did for two big scores — on third-and-five instead of putting the ball in the air.

In so many ways, it was every bit as boneheaded a call, considering the clock and circumstances, as anything Bowen did later. Yeah, it was a collective. Of coaching negligence.

Did the Giants pile up that big lead? They did, and actually looked like a potential playoff team in the process. But they couldn’t close this one the way they couldn’t close against the Cowboys in the fourth quarter and overtime. So they lost to 40-37 to the Cowboys. They lose 33-32 to the Broncos. Do they have a defense again? But you tell me exactly how much knowing the way those two games ended.

They can rush the quarterback. They have a quarterback. Now they have to win some of these next six games, and give themselves a chance to still look like a real team when they get to the last four teams on the schedule:

Commanders
Vikings
Raiders
Cowboys

It is the coach’s job to figure it out now, so that 2-5 really doesn’t become 2-11. Or 3-10. Because you know what records like that would feel like? Like pretty much everything that has been happening over the past several years.

Everybody knows how different the season would look — how different the season would feel — if the Giants had been able to close the deal in Denver. They didn’t. You know why this one was worse, and much worse, than the Miracle at the Meadowlands? Because that team in ’78 was nothing. This team really had given Giants fans hope, for the first time in a long time.

Then came 33 points for the Broncos in the fourth quarter after being shut out for the first three. Then came a team blowing an 18-point lead with under six minutes to play for the first time in NFL history. Nobody gets fired because of all that. Yet.