GM Joe Schoen relishes opportunity to retool Giants this offseason
Joe Schoen, New York Giants General Manager, left, and Head Coach Brian Daboll speak with the media at Quest Diagnostics Training Center in East Rutherford, NJ on Monday, Jan. 23, 2023 after the conclusion of the team's season. Credit: James Escher
Now we get to see what Joe Schoen can do.
As a pauper general manager, he was able to get the Giants to the playoffs. Hamstrung all season by salary-cap realities he inherited, saddled with players he didn’t pick and contracts he didn’t negotiate, and guided by a discipline that prevented him from dipping into future resources to spur on the 2022 team, he still managed to assemble a roster that won nine regular-season games and a postseason contest.
“There were times in-season where maybe there were some veteran players that we wanted to sign who would have helped us and we just weren’t able to do it,” Schoen said on Monday. “That part stinks.”
Those days of austerity are over. The Giants project to have about $54 million in salary-cap space, and that’s before they do anything to ease the burdens from Kenny Golladay and Leonard Williams, currently the two biggest hits on the 2023 ledger. They have nine draft picks come April.
For the past five months, Brian Daboll was able to put his stamp on the franchise as a head coach, establishing the foundations of locker room culture along with all of the new team protocols and rote procedures that allow stability-starved football players to thrive.
Now it’s Schoen’s turn.
These coming months will be his opportunity to truly start molding the Giants in the image he sold ownership when he was hired almost exactly one year ago. The messes he stepped into are almost all mopped up. The Offseason of Joe is upon us.
“To be able to devise a plan where you have more flexibility and resources, I’m definitely excited about that,” he said.
Beyond having flush coffers, the Giants have a coherent staff in place this offseason. They aren’t interviewing and bringing new people in, not trying to figure things out on the fly.
“Once we got through the exit interviews [with the players on Sunday], we pretty much went through a full football calendar year together,” Schoen said. “We’ve been through all this stuff. The process is in place. Everybody who is here right now has been a part of that. There is clarity in terms of what we want from our staff, what Dabes and his staff wants from us.
“The transition into this offseason will be much smoother.”
They also know their own players much better.
They learned a lot about Daniel Jones this season, the most important piece of that being they think they can build around him and win a Super Bowl with him. Schoen will go to work on negotiating that contract soon, and expectations are the sides will reach an agreement to bring Jones back.
Saquon Barkley proved to them that he is a special player. They want him back, too. That may be less certain for Schoen, though, because he will not want to overspend on a running back and might not be able to meet the market value.
“If it works out” is how he couched his desire to retain Barkley (he also noted that there are other tools at the team’s disposal, including the franchise tag).
This can’t be a “run it back” team, though. The status quo isn’t going to cut it.
Schoen knows that.
Still smarting from the smackdown the Giants suffered in the divisional round against the Eagles on Saturday, Schoen noted that there is a very significant “talent gap” between the Giants and the league’s top teams. He was pointedly disappointed in the Giants’ 1-5-1 record against the NFC East and said they have to be more competitive there.
For that to happen, the Giants need an influx of new players. Better players.
Schoen now has the capacity to get them, but it doesn’t mean he should be reckless. That’s what got the Giants in the position they were in. The lessons of his frugality need to remain in place. Even if he doesn’t have to clip as many coupons as he used to and find the creative solutions he and his staff were required to, he still should make shrewd business decisions.
He will. He spoke about “walk-away prices” in negotiations and the adage that “if you shop hungry, you overpay.”
“There were a lot of good football players on our team, a lot of good teammates,” Schoen said of the 2022 roster. “Maybe we weren’t the most talented, but we did have a good team.”
That’s important, but it can take an organization only so far.
Schoen has to fix that to reach the sustained success and championship aspirations he has talked about achieving since his first day on the job.
And for the first time in his tenure, he has the opportunity to do just that.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
