Brian Daboll was not favored to end up dancing with his team in the Giants locker room. The Eagles arrived at MetLife Stadium with an 11-1 record, and with buses full of players more talented than the ones they would compete against on a wet and grim December afternoon. 

But that’s just it — the Giants didn’t compete. In their own building, matched against a hated divisional rival in appropriate NFC East weather, the Giants failed to seize the opportunity and honor the playoff stakes at hand. This was supposed to be a heated fight that would ultimately go to the superior Eagles, not a glorified varsity-jayvee scrimmage with mercy-rule concessions made in the end. 

That’s on the rookie head coach. That’s on Brian Daboll. 

“Everything starts with me,” he said. 

The final score was 48-22, though Daboll said it best when he called it “forty-eight to whatever it was.” Whatever it was, in the end, wasn’t nearly good enough. The most famous fan in the house, former President Bill Clinton, was wearing a Giants cap at the start of the day, and no cap at the end of the day. Clinton hadn’t seen a blowout like this since he pancaked Bob Dole in 1996. 

Most alarming for the losing team, of course, is the advancement of a southward trend. The Giants, who stunned the entire league with their 6-1 start, are 1-4-1 since, and now stand 0-3-1 in the division. They could still save their playoff bid with a victory at Washington, but if they couldn’t beat the Commanders at home it’s hard to make a compelling case that they will beat them on the road. 

Four days after the loss to Dallas on Thanksgiving Day, Daboll told his team, “The season starts now.” The following day the Giants coach explained, “When you play meaningful games in December, I think that’s why we all do this.” 

He needed to dig deep and inspire his players to achieve at a higher level, and it hasn’t happened. As aggressively as Daboll coached in the triumphant season-opening victory at Tennessee, he coached just as conservatively — he was afraid of his own team, in other words — in the tie against Washington. On Sunday, the Giants didn’t look like they had been coached too conservatively. 

They looked like they hadn’t been coached much at all. 

A safety, Julian Love, whiffed on a fourth-down pass that should’ve been knocked down or intercepted before it landed in the hands of DeVonta Smith for a 41-yard touchdown. A punter, Jamie Gillan, fumbled the ball and illegally kicked it for a devastating penalty that set up Jalen Hurts’ 33-yard touchdown throw to A.J. Brown on the next snap. 

The Eagles scored touchdowns on their first three possessions, and the Giants punted (or tried to) on their first four possessions. Philly pounded away for 253 rushing yards and, on the other side of the ball, pounded away on Daniel Jones, one significant Giant who did come to play. Even with a blocked punt in their favor, the Giants’ special teams came up about as empty as their depleted secondary did. 

“Sometimes you get your ass beat; that’s as simple as it is,” Love said. “But we can’t let this fester, really. … Our morale has to stay high, because it’s been high all year.” 

Daboll still deserves a ton of credit for that. He remains the chief reason why a team many believed would go 5-12 this year, if lucky, can still make the franchise’s first postseason appearance since 2016. Daboll has earned near-universal approval throughout the organization — from the locker room to the cafeteria to the front office — for a user-friendly approach to leadership. 

Love, a four-year veteran who’s on his third Giants head coach, told The Post recently that Daboll’s willingness to “allow us to be ourselves” had been “refreshing compared to what we had previously.” It’s a wide-open secret that the holdovers connect with Daboll in ways they didn’t connect with Joe Judge. 

But truth be told, what Daboll put on the field against Philadelphia was pulled from the Pat Shurmur playbook. It was unacceptable football, and the Giants coach knows that. He worked for Bill Belichick and Nick Saban, and he was raised by a grandmother who was tougher than both. All three would have told him that he needs to do better. 

“They outcoached us, they outplayed us,” Daboll said in his postgame press conference, before confirming that “losing sucks.” He maintained that he had no problem with his players’ effort, just their execution, a hard claim to buy. 

“You lose like this, you own it,” Daboll conceded. “You don’t make any excuses.” 

Not even with Saquon Barkley banged up, and with Leonard Williams out. The Eagles have what Daboll called “a star-studded roster,” including two playmakers in Hurts and Smith who helped him win a national title with Saban at Alabama. They are the best bet to win the Super Bowl for a reason. 

But the Eagles did lose to Washington, meaning the Giants should have found a way to compete with them at home. The failure to do that in a big December game belongs squarely on Brian Daboll’s desk.