This Giants coaching candidate is similar to another failed hire. Would this one be different?

With the Giants finishing another miserable season this week, their coaching search is about to crank up.

It won’t include Marcus Freeman, since he is staying at Notre Dame.

But there are still plenty of intriguing candidates — or potential candidates. And one of the guys in that “potential” category is Browns coach Kevin Stefanski, who might get fired.

But even though Stefanski is much better than Pat Shurmur (low bar there), would the Giants really hire another fired Browns coach?

If Mike Tomlin or John Harbaugh is somehow available, either would obviously be a far superior option to Stefanski. But let’s say they remain in Pittsburgh and Baltimore. What then?

Well, there is a strong chance Stefanski is done in Cleveland after this season. The Browns are 4-12. They went 3-14 last year. But the year prior, they finished 11-6 (and 0-1 in the playoffs). From 2020-22, they were 11-5, 8-9 and 7-10, with a wild-card playoff win that first year.

That sort of winning — even an eight-victory season — is rare in Cleveland. Still, Stefanski hasn’t been able to build on 11 wins and a playoff trip in 2023.

He clearly can coach. And he is still young, at 43. He also is a well-regarded offensive mind and quarterback molder — something the Giants could use, as they build around Jaxson Dart in the years to come.

But presuming the Browns lose at the Bengals on Sunday, Stefanski also would carry the unpleasant optics of a coach who just went 7-27 over a two-year stretch.

None of that means he would fail with the Giants — just as it’s unreasonable to compare him to Shurmur. Still, those comparisons are inevitable.

Shurmur was a 9-23 disaster in two seasons as the Giants’ coach, from 2018-19. It was his second (and surely final) shot at being a head coach. He also went 9-23 with the Browns from 2011-12.

The Giants justified the Shurmur hire by leaning into his post-Browns offensive coordinator stints in Philadelphia and Minnesota — and by believing that Cleveland’s perpetual dysfunction contributed more to Shurmur’s terrible record than his own shortcomings did.

Of course, Giants co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch were wrong about Shurmur — just like they’ve been wrong about their five other coach/general manager hires in life after Tom Coughlin and Jerry Reese.

Mara and Tisch missed on Ben McAdoo, Shurmur, Joe Judge and Brian Daboll among coaches and also whiffed on GMs Dave Gettleman and Joe Schoen, even though the latter somehow is poised to return in 2026.

Would Stefanski — or another reasonably qualified coach who has won — actually want to work for Schoen? That’s a big question Mara and Tisch must consider as they assess this coaching search (and Schoen’s future), since they ideally would get a coach with an established track record.

They haven’t hired a proven head coach since Coughlin in 2004. McAdoo, Judge and Daboll had never been a head coach, period. Shurmur had minimal experience — and none of it positive.

So at least Stefanski offers those two playoff appearances over his six seasons in Cleveland. There’s a good chance he will get another shot somewhere eventually.

Will it come this offseason with the Giants? Will he even want them?

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