Over the years, Brian Daboll has discussed his weight with a certain level of candor. Not the polished, media-trained kind, but the other kind, in which a man simply states the truth because he is too weary of asking the same question. He referred to it as a roller coaster. And anyone who has observed him during an entire NFL season would likely concur that’s the appropriate term.
Everyone’s attention was drawn to the 2024 offseason makeover. When he arrived at training camp, Daboll—who was still leading the New York Giants at the time—looked completely different. Sharp-jawed, noticeably energized, and about fifty pounds lighter—the kind of transformation that causes spectators to pause during MetLife Stadium warm-ups. Pilates turned out to be the key. Not some complex medical curriculum. While dining in Wyckoff, New Jersey, he came upon a Pilates studio.
He entered, struggled to move during the first few weeks due to the pain, and eventually became addicted. After a difficult beginning, Giants general manager Joe Schoen was practically overjoyed, telling Kay Adams that Daboll had fallen in love with the practice. That detail—a tough NFL head coach becoming addicted to Pilates because he happened to look through a window—is hard not to find endearing.
However, the weight gain always returns. Daboll has publicly and unapologetically stated as much. He has admitted that the regular season usually restores about 20 of those hard-lost pounds following those demanding offseason periods. Perhaps more. The filming sessions take longer than expected. The food options deteriorate. You have to spend money on sleep to remain functional. Although Daboll is not the only coach to identify this cycle, he is one of the few who are willing to do so.
One of Daboll’s longtime coworkers, Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell, once joked that Daboll is a “chameleon”—someone who can look entirely different in a matter of months. It was the kind of comment that made everyone in the room laugh, but it also carried a deeper meaning. Being an NFL coach is not a lifestyle that inherently promotes health. The emotional burden of overseeing 53 men, a front office, a fan base, and the weekly chaos of professional football weighs on a person in ways that don’t manifest on any scale. The hours are taxing, and the stress is unrelenting.
Daboll has cited his formative years as a window into the potential severity of the cycle. There were periods when he worked as an assistant in Cleveland that were characterized by fast food, late-night film sessions, and little to no sleep. The weight fluctuated wildly. Even with the best of intentions heading into a new offseason, it might be more difficult to break the pattern now that those years have left a sort of metabolic memory.
What’s intriguing—and perhaps overlooked in the commotion surrounding his physical makeover—is that Daboll never appeared to pursue weight loss in order to gain public acceptance. He has discussed it using the pragmatic language of someone attempting to keep up with a demanding job. It reads less like a redemption arc and more like a man attempting to deal with reality in real time—the wager with a friend that allegedly caused his major 2024 loss, the Pilates sessions before sunrise, and the admission that the season would erode his progress.
Observing all of this, it seems as tho Brian Daboll’s weight has always served as a kind of visible record of the NFL’s demands on its coaches. It increases when he has a window to breathe and decreases when the schedule becomes harsh. Things on the field had gotten so bad by the 2025 season that, with a 2–8 record, he was fired in November. It seems almost irrelevant now whether the stress of that last, challenging year had a physical impact, as previous hard seasons obviously did.
Daboll’s weight story actually highlights the human cost of elite coaching, a topic the league rarely discusses in public. Wins and losses don’t accurately reflect the kind of score that the body maintains. After losing fifty pounds, he gained twenty more during the season. He continued to sit through late-night film sessions while doing Pilates at dawn. It’s still unclear if any regimen, no matter how rigorous, can adequately meet the demands of an NFL season. According to Daboll’s account, it most likely can’t. Not totally. Perhaps that’s the most truthful aspect of it.
FAQs
Q: How much weight did Brian Daboll gain back during the NFL season?
A: Typically around 20 pounds — the regular season grind almost always claws some of it back.
Q: What caused Brian Daboll’s weight gain in earlier years?
A: Late-night film sessions, fast food, and near-zero sleep during his assistant coaching days in Cleveland.
Q: Did Brian Daboll’s weight affect his coaching performance?
A: He says it affected his energy and sustainability — not his playbook, but definitely his body.
Q: How did Daboll lose 50 pounds before the 2024 season?
A: He spotted a Pilates studio in Wyckoff, New Jersey, walked in, and got completely hooked.
Q: Did Brian Daboll ever fully keep the weight off?
A: No — he’s openly admitted it’s a lifelong roller coaster, not a one-time fix.
Q: What did Dan Campbell say about Daboll’s weight changes?
A: He called him a “chameleon” — someone who can look completely different within just a few months.
Q: Is Brian Daboll still coaching after his weight loss journey?
A: Yes — he’s now the offensive coordinator for the Tennessee Titans as of the 2026 season.
