Honest admission reinforces pressure to get this draft right
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Joe Schoen’s stark assessment of the Giants’ current state was the biggest takeaway from Thursday’s pre-nfl Draft press conference at the team’s training facility.
The third-year GM offered sobering insight about why he wouldn’t lean towards one side of the ball or the other for need.
“I think we’re not one player away, or two players,” Schoen said.
He didn’t run from the Giants’ primary shortcoming when discussing the value of adding a No. 1 wide receiver.
“We need to score more,” Schoen said. “At the end of the day, we need to score more points.”
Schoen even accepted a poor track record of player health on his watch while discussing his comfort with injury risks in the draft.
“We’ve unfortunately had some issues with injuries the last couple years since I’ve been here,” he said, “so you want to stray away from those injury risks the best you can.”
These admissions were all sprinkled into Schoen’s delicately phrased answers about his plans for next week’s 2024 NFL Draft, in which the Giants hold the No. 6 overall pick.
But they painted a picture of a GM who recognizes that his team has a long way to go, so he won’t be able to fix everything next week, although the pressure is on to make progress.
“Every waking moment this is what we’re thinking about, the draft,” Schoen said.
All of this sets the table for a critical weekend that will become the pivot point of the Schoenbrian Daboll regime.
Six-time Super Bowl champion coach Bill Belichick is believed to be waiting until next January for openings on three teams he has told confidants he would be interested in coaching: the Dallas Cowboys, Philadelphia Eagles and Giants, according to an ESPN report.
The Giants, coming off a surprise playoff berth and victory in 2022, had one total offensive TD in their first five losses of last season. They went three straight games without an offensive TD against Seattle, Miami and Buffalo in Weeks 4-6.
They’ve been unable to keep players healthy. They allowed 85 sacks last season, the second-most in NFL history.
They had rampant staff turnover after the season due to an untenable and dysfunctional operation, led by the resignation of experienced defensive coordinator Wink Martindale.
Then Schoen and Daboll assured co-owner John Mara that letting Saquon Barkley walk at this juncture was the correct play, even though Mara didn’t love that the face of his franchise would be heading to the Philadelphia Eagles in free agency.