EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — A year after trying to “expedite the process,” New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen has changed his tune. Now, Schoen is preaching patience and emphasizing how it will take time to build the roster.
That’s a tough message to send entering Year 3. A surprisingly successful debut season raised expectations and led to Schoen’s attempt to speed up the rebuild around Daniel Jones after giving the quarterback a four-year, $160 million contract.
That deviation from the initial plan backfired, as the Giants regressed with a tumultuous 6-11 season that resulted in half the coaching staff being overhauled. So it will be tough for fans to grant patience despite Schoen talking about having “multiple needs across the board” and not being “one player away or two players.”
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Once Schoen committed to Jones, the course was set that the Giants would aim to build a contender around him. But a disastrous season plagued by Jones’ injuries and poor play cast major doubts on that plan.
The Giants operated like a team prepared to change direction at quarterback, beginning with Schoen’s scouting itinerary during the season attending games featuring all of the top QB prospects. The evaluation shifted into overdrive after the season, with Schoen, coach Brian Daboll and the rest of the team’s brass traveling the country to closely inspect all of the top passers.
It was the same process Schoen, then as assistant GM, and Daboll, as offensive coordinator, undertook when they were with the Buffalo Bills in 2018. But Schoen and Daboll weren’t able to replicate the Bills’ 2018 blueprint of twice trading up to land quarterback Josh Allen with the seventh pick.
With Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels locked into the top two picks, the Giants focused their efforts on trading with the New England Patriots to get the third pick to take North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye.
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The Giants’ strongest offer amounted to the No. 6 pick, No. 47 and their 2025 first-round pick, according to the New York Daily News. But the Patriots needed a quarterback just as badly as the Giants still do. And despite director of scouting Eliot Wolf claiming to be “open for business,” a league source said the Patriots weren’t seriously interested in trading the pick. They wanted Maye and took him.
The Giants didn’t deem any of the other three quarterbacks that went in the top 12 — Michael Penix Jr., J.J. McCarthy and Bo Nix — worthy of the sixth pick, so they took LSU wide receiver Malik Nabers. So instead of replacing Jones, the Giants gave him the best receiver of his career.
That’s why Schoen lamenting that people want “instant gratification” falls flat. This draft focused on filling needs to fortify the roster led by the quarterback Schoen chose to pay $40 million per year. The expectation for a team in this stage of its build should be to win, but Schoen’s comments about Jones hardly generate enthusiasm.
“I said it in January after the season: Our expectation was Daniel would be our starter, and we brought Drew Lock to be his backup and Tommy (DeVito) is a backup,” Schoen said. “So that’s where we are and that’s how we’ll move forward this season. Daniel is still under contract for three more years. As it sits today, that’s where we are.”
The Giants aren’t in a desirable place. And there won’t be much patience from a restless fan base for Schoen and Daboll to get the Giants back on track.
Why not McCarthy?
The notion that all of the pre-draft work the Giants did on the quarterbacks was part of a “smoke screen” is silly. Time is too precious for GMs and coaches to fly around the country in a misdirection attempt. And if it was a smoke screen, it was unsuccessful. No team traded ahead of the Giants, so if they were bluffing their interest in McCarthy or another QB, no one was fooled.
The more realistic scenario is the Giants did all of the research on this quarterback class and believed Maye was the only prospect worthy of trying to trade up for (with the understanding that Williams and Daniels weren’t attainable). It’s entirely plausible that after spending so much time with McCarthy, the Giants simply concluded he wasn’t worth the No. 6 pick. But a team can’t reach that conclusion until it invests the time to do a deep evaluation of the prospect.
It will be interesting to track McCarthy’s career because he landed in an ideal situation in Minnesota with a loaded supporting cast and strong coaching staff. If McCarthy thrives, the decision to pass on him will hover over Schoen and the Giants.
Value drafting
Positional value governs Schoen’s roster construction. He has used his first-round picks on an edge rusher, an offensive tackle, a cornerback and a wide receiver. All of those qualify as premium positions, which represents a greater bargain when those players are on their rookie contracts.
Nabers’ cap hit as a rookie will be just over $5 million. That will make him roughly the 47th highest-paid wide receiver in the league.
Schoen used the sixth pick on Nabers on the heels of Philadelphia’s A.J. Brown signing a three-year, $96 million extension, Detroit’s Amon-Ra St. Brown signing a four-year, $120 million extension and Philadelphia’s DeVonta Smith signing a three-year, $75 million extension.
“You see what some of these receivers are getting right now, APY (average per year), and you get a guy at his age (almost 21) where we got him in the draft, and you’re going to have cost control for five years,” Schoen said. “We’re fired up about that.”
Some quotes I had gathered about Malik Nabers before the draft:
• From a scout: “Nabers is the interesting one (among the top 3 WR) because he’s so strong after the catch and he’s so fast and so explosive. He’s a dog that elevates your room. He’s like Stefon Diggs.”
• From…
— Dan Duggan (@DDuggan21) April 26, 2024
Patterns emerge
Another draft provided a greater sample size to reveal Schoen’s trends.
Schoen clearly targets needs in the middle rounds. Safety and cornerback were two of the biggest weaknesses on the roster entering the draft, so Schoen took Minnesota safety Tyler Nubin in the second round and Kentucky cornerback Andru Phillips in the third. Schoen addressed another need in the fourth round by taking Penn State tight end Theo Johnson as Darren Waller remains undecided about retiring.
Schoen continues to favor prospects from major programs. All six picks this year hail from power conference schools. Schoen has never used a pick on the first two days of the draft on a player from a small school.
Pre-draft visits had been a major tell during Schoen’s first two drafts, but it wasn’t as much of a theme this year. Nabers and Phillips were the only players picked by the Giants the team hosted on pre-draft visits.
The Giants gained intel on Phillips, Johnson and sixth-round pick Darius Muasau from having their assistants coach them at postseason all-star games. Muasau also played for new special teams coordinator Michael Ghobrial at Hawaii. Assistant general manager Brandon Brown and safeties coach Mike Treier traveled to Minnesota for a private workout with Nubin. So the Giants still spent extensive time with the players they picked, but they didn’t rely as much on the pre-draft visits.
Theo Johnson said he didn’t actually visit the Giants, but he had a great experience with Shea Tierney, who was his team’s OC at the Senior Bowl. He also knows Daboll’s son, Christian, who was a student assistant at Penn State and is now a Giants offensive assistant.
— Dan Duggan (@DDuggan21) April 27, 2024
The youth of Schoen’s first draft class jumped out, with seven of the 11 picks 21 years old or younger. But last year’s draft class skewed the other way, with four picks age 24 or older during their rookie season.
Schoen said Nabers, who turns 21 in July, was the fourth-youngest prospect on the Giants’ 450-player board. But every other pick is at least 22, with fifth-round running back Tyrone Tracy turning 25 in November. The extra year of eligibility due to COVID-19 has been boosting the age of draft picks across the board.
The Burns trade
Schoen touted outside linebacker Brian Burns, who was acquired in a trade with the Carolina Panthers, as part of this draft. The 39th pick the Giants sent to the Panthers in the trade was used on Florida State defensive tackle Braden Fisk. The Panthers traded the pick to the Rams in exchange for a second-round pick (No. 52), a fifth-round pick (No. 155) and a 2025 second-round pick.
The Giants and Panthers also swapped fifth-round picks in the Burns trade. The Panthers dealt the pick they received, No. 141, to the Bills as part of a trade involving the 32nd and 33rd picks. The Giants took Tracy with the 166th pick they received from the Panthers in the pick swap.
The last piece of the trade is a 2025 fifth-round pick the Giants sent to Carolina.
Slayton’s status
Schoen dismissed the possibility of trading wide receiver Darius Slayton, who has been skipping the voluntary offseason program because he wants a new contract. Slayton lost leverage when the Giants took Nabers, but that didn’t make the veteran expendable.
Schoen noted that the Giants already paid Slayton a $2.4 million roster bonus in March, which would reduce their cap savings if they traded the 27-year-old. Carrying an $8.2 million cap hit for Slayton this season is palatable considering his consistent production and the other receivers playing on inexpensive rookie contracts.
Lack of depth is a problem at many positions, so the Giants will welcome having to figure out playing time for Slayton, Nabers, Wan’Dale Robinson and Jalin Hyatt. But if Slayton already feels underpaid, his outlook likely won’t be helped by potentially sacrificing playing time in a contract year since Nabers, Robinson and Hyatt are the future at receiver.
Slayton’s $2.7 million salary could make him an attractive chip at the trade deadline if the young receivers have emerged and/or he remains unhappy.
No word from Waller
Waller, who hasn’t been participating in the Giants’ offseason program while he contemplates retirement, was back in New Jersey on Friday to speak about his past substance abuse and the importance of mental health at Carrier Clinic, which is Hackensack Meridian Health’s flagship behavioral health campus.
“It’s just evaluating my overall commitment level,” Waller told The Athletic. “I don’t feel like it’s fair to my teammates, fair to the franchise, fair to people that support it to have somebody out there that isn’t 100 percent committed to the entire journey from April to February. I don’t know if I’m in a place right now where I have a definitive answer, and I’m trying to be OK with that because I know there are people that would like to have an answer and maybe move in a certain direction with my answer, but I don’t want to rush it and end up regretting it one day.”
Schoen said they’re continuing to give Waller “space” to make his decision. Waller, 31, said he’s been training so he’ll be physically ready if he decides to play.
Waller hasn’t set a firm deadline for when he’ll make a decision. The Giants will gain $6.7 million in cap space with a $7.4 million dead money charge if Waller retires before June 1. The savings will be $11.6 million if he retires after June 1, with a $2.5 million dead money charge this year and a $4.9 million dead money charge in 2025. The cap implications would be the same if the Giants release Waller, so there’s no incentive to rush his decision since he’s still a talented player despite his injury woes.
Waller understood that the Giants had to operate as if he wouldn’t return, and the team did so by selecting Johnson. It would be overly ambitious to expect a fourth-round rookie to replace Waller, but Johnson at least provides more receiving ability to a tight end room stocked with blockers. Even if Waller returns, he’s not part of the long-term plans, so Johnson was a necessary pick for the future of the position.
A tragic loss
Listening to Waller describe his personal journey through addiction and mental health struggles was particularly poignant after the tragic news of former Giants offensive lineman Korey Cunningham’s death. Cunningham was found dead in his Clifton, N.J., home on Thursday.
Cunningham appeared in 13 games for the Giants during the 2021-22 seasons. The 28-year-old was with the team last offseason until he was cut late in training camp. Cunningham’s gregarious personality made him a popular figure in the locker room.
I was in Arizona when we drafted Korey Cunnigham in 2018. He moved onto the NY Giants and was living in NJ this past year.
Quick story:
We would invite him to the OL dinner every week even though he wasn’t on the team which doesn’t happen…ever. Team dinners are for players on…— Justin Pugh (@JustinPugh) April 26, 2024
“He was a good dude. It’s so sad,” Waller said. “He was just a great personality. But you never know what people have going on behind all that. That hit me. It’s tough to hear.”
(Photo of Brian Daboll, Joe Schoen, Malik Nabers and John Mara: Noah K. Murray / Associated Press)
