How Giants Leverage Synergy to Create Competitive Rosters

Last season, the New York Giants shocked the world by fielding a competitive roster that went 9-7-1 and made the playoffs despite questions about its personnel and despite having a brand new front office and coaching staff.

The secret behind the team's success was a very simple yet often overlooked process that one would often see from competitive teams and which was missing during most of the Giants' years following their 2011 Super Bowl championship.

The synergy between the front office and the coaching staff.

It sounds basic enough: the coaching staff identifies what it needs to run its systems, and the front office goes out and finds guys to fill those roles. But sometimes egos get in the way to where a front office executive might fall in love with a player who may or may not make sense for the team.

The result of such a scenario is often disastrous. The player is brought in, and the coaching staff is then forced to jam a square peg into a round hole, leading to friction between the two sides of the organization.

Since the arrival of general manager Joe Schoen, assistant general manager Brandon Brown, and head coach Brian Daboll, that has not been a problem for the Giants. And that synergy between the coaching staff and the front office has been the key (and missing) ingredient in the organization's turnaround.

"I think when you look from the top down from (general manager) Joe Shoen and (Daboll) preaching collaboration when there's synergy between the scouting department and the coaching staff, it allows us, like I kind of label it, ‘finding players within the margin.’"

"Dabs preaches to the coaching staff, ‘Develop these guys, our rookies, our year two guys.’ There’s been a high emphasis on developing their skillset. For us on the scouting side, it’s making sure that they have the skill set that fits our scheme. So, it's been a good marriage so far."

That approach, as simple and as obvious as it might sound, hasn't always been deployed in the past. For example, if there's a split opinion between the general manager and the head coach regarding a player's fit, the general manager's opinion is often the deciding factor.

There have been other cases where a focus has been on getting a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none, which results in a player either not being a fit for what the coaches want or leads to a struggle to develop that player failing to develop until he goes elsewhere.

That hasn't been a problem for the Giants under the Schoen-Daboll regime. The front office has done a good job of identifying strengths and weaknesses in its draft prospects and getting guys whose positives fit into the scheme and the role they're being asked to play, allowing the players to look like steals.

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Cornerback Tre Hawkins III is one such example.

"He’s got length that fits our system," Brown said. "(Defensive coordinator) Wink (Martindale) is very particular about what plays in the system and what's at a premium. We know, hey, you’ve got to be able to run, got to be strong, guys that have length, and you’ve got to be willing to be physical in the run game also in press coverage.

"So, when you look at Tre, he’s a guy that stood out at the All-Star game. It’s not a surprise to us."

Receiver Jalin Hyatt is another example. Somewhat limited in his role at Tennessee, the Giants scouting department quickly realized that Hyatt's talent was much deeper than what he was asked to show in college.

"I think with Jalin, it’s doing your due diligence," Brown said. "It's knowing what he was asked to do in Tennessee. It’s us having those extra conversations with his position coach at Tennessee, talking to the coaching staff at Tennessee, and knowing what their system called for because what he's doing for us, he has more talent in his body than the role he was asked to play at Tennessee.

"So, you look at the skillset. Did he have bend, balance, and burst? Can he get out of breaks? Was he asked to run a limited route tree at Tennessee versus what he can do for us? I think us going that, call it, full circle of doing all our due diligence and finding the evidence, it was a great process."

Defensive lineman Jordon Riley, whom Brown said wasn't on anyone's radar until assistant director of player personnel Dennis Hickey and director of player personnel Tim McDonnell saw the young man play, is another example.

"Dennis Hickey goes out to Oregon and sees him and is like, ‘B, listen, I'm just telling you this guy has traits that we want to play with knockback, we want to be big up front, want to control the line of scrimmage, he fits our brand of ball.’

Tim tells me, ‘B, we need to see him play.’ So, Tim and I went and saw him play against Cal. Tim’s been the ultimate checks and balances for me, someone that I have blind trust in where he says, ‘We need to go watch this guy.’"

Then comes the coaching aspect.

"There’re some inconsistencies in his game, and you’ve got to do the full, call it, the full evidence and due diligence and the fact-finding process on Jordon. Him being a three-school transfer, us going the extra mile in terms of having (defensive line coach) Andre Patterson and (assistant defensive line coach) Bryan Cox work him out privately.

"In the personnel department, we refer to Dre Patterson as Dr. Dre, right? So, he's a guy that puts his fingerprints on guys and tweaks up their techniques, and we see flashes, but you can't replicate Jordon’s size.

"So, it's on us to kind of bridge that gap with, can he take to the coaching? The development, getting his weight right, all those things that every time we put a benchmark in front of him, he's met it."

It all adds up to a very deep roster filled with more fits to fulfill what the coaches want to do. And if that translates into a few more wins, especially in games where critics believe the Giants have no business even being in, then even better.

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