EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — In fairness to Joe Schoen, he was in an impossible position. There’s no defending the team the fourth-year Giants general manager has assembled, but that’s the spot Schoen found himself in on Tuesday during his annual bye week news conference.
The Giants are 5-25 since the start of the 2024 season. They’re 2-11 for the second consecutive season. They entered the bye on a seven-game losing streak, closing fast on last season’s franchise record 10-game skid.
No spin from Schoen could deflect from that failure.
“You guys have seen the results, two wins, not good enough,” Schoen said a day after the Giants got embarrassed 33-15 by the Patriots on Monday Night Football.
Schoen met every critical query with a reflexive statement that “I understand the question.” The problem is the answers have been elusive. Again, there’s simply no defending the product.
“Have I screwed up, and have I made mistakes? Absolutely,” Schoen said.
Schoen vowed that he won’t make the same mistake twice, even though some errors have occurred with alarming regularity during his tenure. For instance, this is the third straight season the Giants’ kicking situation has been a disaster because they relied on the aging, injury-prone Graham Gano.
Schoen has consistently neglected the run defense, which has ranked 27th or worse in each of his four seasons. Yet, Schoen was left scratching his head Tuesday about why his heavy investments in the pass defense during the offseason haven’t improved the overall unit.
Schoen believes he’s entitled to learn from his mistakes, and growing pains are expected for any first-time GM. But coach Brian Daboll, who arrived from Buffalo with Schoen in 2022, was fired three weeks ago without any more chances to learn from his mistakes.
“My hands are in it, just like Brian’s (were), and ownership made a decision to move on,” Schoen said in his first comments since Daboll’s firing.
Beyond Daboll, there’s a growing list of coordinators and assistants who have been fired over the past three years. But it’s only the coaches who have been held accountable for the second-worst record in the NFL since the start of the 2023 season.
Schoen claimed he’s “better today than I was four years ago when I got this job.” There’s nothing to support that claim, however, given the team’s record has been getting worse each year.
Schoen’s idea of learning from mistakes has been reactionary overcorrections.
A year after creating a weakness at safety by letting Xavier McKinney leave in free agency to blossom into an All-Pro for the Packers, Schoen gave a similar contract to a lesser player, Jevon Holland. Holland hasn’t been a difference-maker for a defense that ranks 30th in points allowed.
Swing tackle was a sore spot for years because the Giants tried to shoehorn third-round pick Josh Ezeudu into that role. When that predictably failed, Schoen signed James Hudson to a two-year, $12 million contract on the first day of free agency this offseason. That signing has been so disastrous that Hudson has become a weekly healthy scratch.
“As long as you’re learning from those mistakes, and you reflect on the process in place, and where you went wrong, you can continue to get better; that’s what’s most important,” Schoen said.
At times, it felt like Schoen was reading from the same script as his 2024 bye week news conference when the team was 2-8. But he wisely avoided trying to sell how close this team is, like he did a year ago.
That would have been an impossible argument to make, even with the Giants’ incomprehensible habit of blowing late leads. The Giants have the fifth-worst point differential in the league, and they’ve lost six games by double digits, which is tied for the third-most in the league.
The main point Schoen echoed from a year ago was the optimism centered on the “good young core to build around.” It’s undeniable that there are some promising young players on the roster, headlined by rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart. Second-year wide receiver Malik Nabers and rookie running back Cam Skattebo, who are both out for the season with injuries, are talented playmakers on rookie contracts, and rookie outside linebacker Abdul Carter has the ability that made him the No. 3 pick, but he needs to mature on and off the field.
Otherwise, the “young nucleus of talent” that was championed by ownership when it was announced that Schoen wasn’t being fired with Daboll doesn’t look as dazzling as it did a year ago. Center John Michael Schmitz is the only useful player from the seven-man 2023 draft class, and he has only progressed to serviceable in his third season.
The 2024 class was viewed as a crowning achievement for Schoen after one season. But the outlook on that group is cloudier now. Nabers, the first-round pick, has looked like a star since Day 1, but he’s been out since Week 4 with a torn ACL. The rest of the class has either plateaued or regressed in Year 2, aside from some tantalizing flashes from fourth-round tight end Theo Johnson.
“There are pieces here,” Schoen said.
The narrative last year and throughout the offseason was that the Giants only needed upgraded quarterback play to get over the hump. The Giants gave Russell Wilson $10.5 million and spent the offseason building him up as the answer to their quarterback woes. But the 37-year-old is clearly washed up and was benched after three games.
Dart took over in Week 4 and, as Schoen said, has “exceeded expectations.” Plugging a dynamic rookie quarterback into the roster Schoen spent four years building should have propelled the Giants. Instead, the results haven’t changed while Schoen was left to cling to the offense’s improvement in total yards compared to last season.
“We do have a good young quarterback that’s on a rookie contract for the next four years, and that’s when it gets fun,” Schoen said.
What remains unclear is if Schoen will be there to build around Dart. Co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch announced in November that Schoen would “lead the search for a new head coach.”
The initial interpretation from that announcement was that Schoen’s future was secure. However, it’s clear Schoen’s fate is in the balance with four games remaining in the season.
“Ownership will evaluate the entire football operation at the end of the season, as they should, and then we’ll go from there,” Schoen said.
That was a far different tune than a year ago, when Schoen didn’t hesitate to answer affirmatively when asked if he expected to be retained during his bye week news conference.
That the Giants have a coaching vacancy makes Schoen’s standing more tenuous. He indicated that there won’t be any significant steps made in the coaching search until after the season, since the focus is on supporting interim coach Mike Kafka for the final four games.
The question ownership needs to answer over the next month is whether they should fully clean house. Schoen listed off the pieces on the roster that will make the Giants attractive to head-coaching candidates. But there’s no way to add Schoen to the list of selling points.
It would obviously be more enticing for head coaching candidates to start with a clean slate on the same timeline as a new GM. There’s no benefit for a new head coach to join a general manager who would be entering his fifth year on the heels of three consecutive abysmal seasons.
“The calls we’ve gotten, I think we’re going to be able to fill the (head coaching) job,” Schoen said defiantly.
The same applies to the GM job. Schoen can only hope ownership doesn’t draw that obvious conclusion in its postseason evaluation.
