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It would be hard for anyone on the New York Giants coaching staff to argue they deserve special treatment based on how the season has gone. However, one man tasked with overseeing the team’s defensive line may have lost his job due to how he reacted when his seat was moved on the flight home back from a loss to the Patriots.
No one expected the Giants to be Super Bowl contenders coming off a season where they finished with a 3-14 record, and anyone who bet the under on their estimated win total heading into the 2025 campaign has to be feeling pretty good about that wager.
The Brian Daboll Era came to a merciful end midway through November after the Giants got off to a 2-8 start and fired the head coach who posted a 20-40-1 record while winning a single playoff game during the three-and-a-half seasons he was at the helm.
Interim head coach Mike Kafka, who was promoted from offensive coordinator following Daboll’s dismissal, also kicked defensive coordinator Shane Bowen to the curb a couple of weeks later after the team choked away a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter before losing to the Lions in overtime.
We were treated to the latest shakeup when assistant defensive line coach Bryan Cox was canned during their bye week last Friday, and an interesting rumor has surfaced in the wake of that development.
The Giants reportedly fired Bryan Cox because he had an issue with his seat being moved on the team’s flight back from New England
The Giants fell to 2-11 on the season with a 33-15 loss to the Patriots on December 1st, and they had a couple of weeks to prepare for their showdown with the Commanders on Sunday.
There was no reason to believe there would be any further changes to the coaching staff in the interim when you consider no one was let go in the immediate wake of the defeat in New England. However, on Friday, we learned Bryan Cox, a three-time Pro Bowler who had been a defensive line assistant for the Giants since 2022, had been shown the door.
No concrete explanation was given, but on Wednesday, The Athletic‘s Dan Duggan dropped a very interesting tidbit when he asserted it was linked to what unfolded after Cox was informed his seat had been moved toward the back of the team plane that ferried the Giants from Boston to New York City after they fell to the Patriots.
Mike Kafka again declined to share any details on what led to the firing of assistant defensive line coach Bryan Cox during the bye week.
Sources say the final straw was Cox’s reaction to the seating arrangement being changed on the flight home from the Patriots game. The…
— Dan Duggan (@DDuggan21) December 10, 2025
As Duggan notes, Kafka didn’t do anything to dispel that report when he got the chance to address it, saying, “You’d have to ask [Cox]” when the topic was raised at a press conference on Wednesday.