Some thoughts on the National Football League as we count down to Super Bowl LVI Sunday evening in Los Angeles:

— IT WILL be interesting to see how Brian Daboll fares as he begins his stint as head coach of the Giants, one of the most dysfunctional franchises in the NFL.

Every year teams that fire their head coaches scour the league for the most promising coordinators.

To be sure, Daboll’s résumé is in order. He joined the Bills as offensive coordinator in 2018 and, in four seasons, enhanced his reputation after previous stints in that position with the Browns, Dolphins and Chiefs.

He was also the OC for Alabama’s 2017 NCAA championship team.

Then, too, he worked 10 seasons for the Patriots, over two stretches, though that might be damning with faint praise given the dismal record of Bill Belichick’s former assistants as head coaches.

But Daboll is tied to his former boss in another way.

For two decades, the question raged whether it was Belichick’s “genius” or Tom Brady’s extraordinary quarterback skills that made the Pats so good for so long.

Daboll faces a similar query, albeit over a shorter time frame. Was it his inspired play-calling or the emerging talent of QB Josh Allen that put the Bills among the league elite?

We’ll find out fairly quickly as the Giants’ Daniel Jones is a decidedly pedestrian quarterback, though admittedly with flawed weapons.

And, Joe Schoen, Buffalo’s former assistant general manager who just became New York’s GM, after observing him over four years with the Bills, had enough confidence in Daboll to make him his most important hire.

— BUFFALO’S defensive coordinator, Leslie Frazier, appears to have missed his head-coaching chance, at least this season. A year ago, he was reported to be a lock for the Houston job, then the Texans hired David Culley, fired after one season.

This year, Frazier appeared to have positioned himself well again. Buffalo finished No. 1 in the NFL in both fewest points and yards surrendered, though that mark came against a schedule that featured the combined least-productive offenses in the league in those two categories.

Frazier interviewed with the Giants, Bears and Dolphins, but those three jobs are filled. The only remaining open position — and it won’t be after Sunday — is with the Vikings, for whom he was head coach over four seasons, nine years ago.

— SPEAKING of Frazier, it’s hard not to wonder whether the staggering 552 yards surrendered by his defense and the embarrassing final 13 seconds of regulation in the overtime divisional playoff loss at Kansas City cost him a head-coaching opportunity.

Worse, there’s a conspiracy theory that it was Frazier’s boss, Sean McDermott, who took over the defensive calls on the Chiefs’ game-tying possession.

It’s possible, but not likely.

However, that scenario got legs after McDermott was evasive in his answer about failing to squib the preceding kickoff and the absolutely horrendous pass coverage that let Kansas City get into position for the tying field goal.

He blamed “execution” for both, an answer that could be seen as covering for himself – he has the final say, after all – or somebody else.

— THE HYPOCRISY of the NFL never ceases to amaze.

Back in 1963, the late Paul Hornung and Alex Karras were suspended for a season over betting $50 on their own teams – Packers and Lions, respectively – as gambling was seen as a threat to the league’s integrity and credibility.

Fast forward nearly 60 years and the NFL is virtually sleeping with sports books, engaged in partnerships with four of them.

Oh, there are the obligatory PSAs about “Betting Responsibly” but with an increasing number of states signing off on internet betting – right down to cell phone apps – wagering couldn’t be easier for problem gamblers. Worse, that unfettered access to myriad sports, right down to in-game bets, virtually guarantees the proliferation of gambling addiction.

— BUT MAYBE the NFL sees legalized wagering not only as a revenue source … but also as a distraction.

Two recent stories should be shaking the league to its core.

The first was former Dolphins coach Brian Flores, after being fired, claiming that team owner Stephen Ross offered him $100,000 for every loss in 2019 to enhance Miami’s draft position.

Then, fired former Cleveland coach Hue Jackson indicated that Browns owner Jimmy Haslam had also offered money for losses. Jackson later walked that back to the extent he claimed the team had a “four-year plan that incentivised losing.”

In fairness, Jackson wasn’t a very good coach and was fully capable of failing without reward. But Flores is different. He was fired last month after two straight winning seasons.

And, no matter what, even the suggestion that team management would interfere with the outcome of games has to send chills throughout the league.

Methinks Commissioner Roger Goodell isn’t sleeping so well these days.