How New York Giants Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll Are Redefining the "Giants Way"

The New York Giants haven't played a game yet, but so far, the program set up by general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll is very encouraging.

Author:
Patricia Traina
Publish date:
May 16, 2022 10:06 AM EDT

The 2022 New York Giants have yet to play a game, preseason or regular season, so all's well inside 1925 Giants Drive until it's not.

But even if the upcoming season falls short of the ultimate goal, which for every team every year is to win the Super Bowl, there is a growing number of reasons to finally believe that the Giants franchise, stuck in a downward spiral for most of the last decade, is finally looking at brighter days ahead.

You can start with the foundation being built by general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll, a couple of guys the Giants plucked from the Buffalo Bills organization to help redefine and modernize "the Giants Way."

The thing that immediately strikes one about the synergy between the two men, besides a willingness to help the other out beyond his job duties--look no further than when Schoen threw some passes during drills on the first day of the minicamp--is they are without question on the same page.

For proof of that, look no further than how they conducted their draft press conferences after every pick. Whereas in the past, the general manager, head coach, and director of college scouting would all get their 10 minutes at the podium individually, Schoen and Daboll sat at a tackle together to field questions from the media as one united voice.

That is important because in the past, when one guy didn't know what the other was saying, sometimes the information disseminated contradicted what the others were saying.

If there was that kind of disorganization over the clarity of the message the team wanted to put out, one could only imagine what the communication process behind closed doors must have been like at times.

The united front by Schoen and Daboll has spilled down into the players they have brought on board, particularly the rookie draft class.

Look hard at the 11 young men they drafted, and believe it or not, you'd be hard-pressed to find one that is a diva or has an attitude or who hasn't been champing at the bit to get going with football after a months-long break in between the college season and the NFL's spring activities.

Even larger-than-life personalities like edge Kayvon Thibodeaux, a player that multiple outlets reported before the draft had turned teams off, came in wanting to be one of the guys rather than the star.

His telling and sincere answer to a question about how he could lead as a rookie (see the above video) sounded more like a 10-year veteran than a 21-year-old former college prospect.

But back to Schoen and Daboll and how they value people. In what was probably a first at a rookie minicamp, the two men took their traditional picture with the 11-member draft class after the camp wrapped up. But they also took a group shot with all the minicamp participants and a separate photo with the signed undrafted free agents who posed with the draft class.

If that's not enough to convince you that it's a new era of football, how about the respect shown to the media, which can be a tough crowd at times?

For example, during the minicamp practices, Daboll, who, while transitioning from position group to position group scattered across the field, made sure that the media had a clear view of the action, even at times overruling the viewing boundaries set by the public relations staff.

Those actions aren't part of an act. It's who Schoen and Daboll are. They are two authentic men who are looking to ensure that the foundation they're building is as solid as can be so that if adversity does strike, the new house will be able to withstand even the harshest conditions.

Of course, all the niceties in the world mean nothing if they don't produce results. Joe Judge, the previous head coach, won a lot of people over long before his team ever played a down in the regular season.

Schoen and Daboll know this. But they also know that just as the Giants didn't go from being a Super Bowl champion to a laughing stock overnight. They know it will take some time to rebuild the foundation and make the Giants a regular post-season participant.

Will ownership, who of late has had anything but patience with the last three coaching staff, sit tight while Schoen and Daboll redefine the "Giants way"?

For the sake of the fans who, over the last decade, have had to sit through what's likely to go down in Giants franchise lore as the Wilderness Years 2.0, let's hope so.