Encouraging Signs Emerge from Start of Giants GM Joe Schoen's Era

Joe Schoen's honeymoon phase with the Giants is off to a promising start, but of course, the biggest test is still to come.

New Giants general manager Joe Schoen is less than a month into his new position, but based on what's transpired thus far, it's clear that he has a firm handle on how to renovate the outdated "Giants Way" of building a franchise.

It's still relatively early, and the results of Schoen's influence on the franchise won't be felt for several months yet. Still, if you're looking for a reason to have faith that this time, things indeed will be different, we present to you the following encouraging developments.

He's not making changes for the sake of change

At the end of the 2021 season, the calls for the team to blow up the entire organization were as loud as they've ever been. And while the team did make two significant changes in bidding farewell to general manager Dave Gettleman and head coach Joe Judge, several other employees who have their fingerprints all over the failures of this franchise remain, at least for now.

That's because Schoen, shortly after he arrived at 1925 Giants Drive, decided he wasn't going to start firing people left and right until he got to know them. Although he was given carte blanche by team ownership to do whatever he felt was best, Schoen has been methodical in his approach to rebuilding the front office, realizing that it's a marathon and not a sprint.

He spoke of wanting to flesh out the organizational structure, to see who was on board with his vision, and go from there. He spoke of collaborating with people to redefine how the Giants would do things, and he pledged to keep an open mind.

As a result, others who were part of the old Giants' way of doing things remain with the organization for now, such as Kevin Abrams and Chris Petit and the scouts.

Whether Schoen intends to make greater changes after the draft remains to be seen--some change is likely. But right now, Schoen is focused squarely on fixing the infrastructure--the way they do things as an organization--and then will turn his sights on adjusting the people aspect.

Bringing in Outside Voices

Schoen was Brandon Beane's right-hand man up in Buffalo, so it was no surprise that Schoen hired a new voice to be his right-hand man with the Giants. What was surprising was that the voice came from the Philadelphia Eagles, a division rival, that voice being Brandon Brown.

Good for Schoen, who thus far has proven he's not ego-driven to think he can handle everything himself. Brown is a rising talent in personnel evolution, learning under Eagles GM Howie Roseman.

Considering how poor the Giants rosters have been, it was crystal clear that they needed to recruit some better talent evaluators to help make better sense of who was the best fit for the Giants from both a pro personnel and draft perspective to avoid embarrassing (and costly) situations where resources were spent on players that turned out not to be fits for what the coaching staff needs to compete.

With any luck, this should result in the Giants doing a better job of retaining players that end up helping them to win rather than having to save face on draft picks and free agents that end up not being ideal fits.

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Evaluating Scouts

Schoen is reportedly doing something interesting with the Giants scouts. According to the New York Post, he's gathering the scouts together to watch film of the draft prospects so he can gauge how each scout studies a player.

"When I go into the meetings it’s really going to be their presentation, their background, evaluation with a player," Schoen told the Post last week at the Senior Bowl. “I want to see how they present that to me and how clearly they can talk about the players and what they know about them." 

From that information, Schoen will be able to ascertain which scouts are worth retaining and which ones need to be replaced, thereby putting an end to any semblance of scouts being carried on scholarship just because of their longevity to the organization.

Schoen will also be using the notes he did in Buffalo as a benchmark for evaluating the scouts. He has already done a lot of work on prospects projected to be drafted in the first four rounds, so he does have a starting point on which to gauge the scouts' performances.

“It will be a good chance for me to go through scenarios with the scouts, see how they think," Schoen said. “Some people are very tunnel-visioned and they’re gonna stick to their grades to the death. Some are more flexible. Some are good at background and they are high-graders or low-graders. As we go through the process, I think there’s 300-plus names on the board right now, I’m gonna get a pretty good feel for who can do what." 

For the time being, though, Schoen isn't going to change the way the Giants scouts write reports or grade players--they're too far into the draft process at this point to do that. But that change is no doubt coming after the draft.

Matching people to their strengths.

Kevin Abrams is a good man and a hard-working man. But let's be honest. Was anyone else slightly concerned when it came out that he had the job he was hired to do--manage the salary cap--was handed off to others over the last decade and a half?

“The truth is, for the last 15 years, Matt Harris, Martin Mayhew, and (Ed) Triggs have been our cap guys more so than I have. I might be over the shoulder a little bit or might have some direction. Ultimately, I suppose the buck rests with me and then Ernie [Accorsi], Jerry [Reese] or Dave [Gettleman], whoever the GM is. But we’ve empowered other people to manage our day-to-day salary cap and our contract structures and, to some extent, our negotiation positions. However, that’s sort of when myself and our personnel people and the GMs will get more involved. But I haven’t been our cap guy in a while.”

A likely reason for this was that Abrams sought to add more responsibilities to his resume, perhaps in preparation for a future promotion to general manager.

While there is nothing wrong with expanding your horizons, if the bottom line results aren't there, that can be a problem. And while it's not known how deeply involved Abrams might have been in personnel evaluation, what is known is that the Giants haven't done a very good job of that as an organization as a whole.

That Schoen reassigned Abrams's responsibilities while bringing in a new assistant general manager speaks volumes about what Schoen might have thought of the previous arrangements. 

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