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Joe Schoen: Giants Still Have a Lot of Work to Do Despite Promising Off-season

Don't expect Giants general manager Joe Schoen to crow about the stellar off-season he appeared to have until he sees it pay off on the field.
Patricia Traina|
Joe Schoen: Giants Still Have a Lot of Work to Do Despite Promising Off-season
Joe Schoen: Giants Still Have a Lot of Work to Do Despite Promising Off-season

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New York Giants

New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen has been around long enough to know that championships aren't won in the off-season.

So despite what looks to be a highly successful off-season in which he cleaned up the team's salary cap, signed key cornerstone players such as quarterback Daniel Jones, defensive lineman Dexter Lawerence, and left tackle Andrew Thomas to new deals, and managed to get running back Saquon Barkley to agree to play on a modified franchise tag, Schoen isn't sitting back celebrating his accomplishments.

"We had a plan in the offseason. It’s a long offseason, kind of culminating today with getting Andrew done, which was really important for us," Schoen said Wednesday before the Giants took the field for their first training camp practice.

The plan, which also included beefing up a struggling run defense and adding speed on both sides of the ball, has the Giants cautiously optimistic that they will be better than a year ago when they took the league by surprise with a 9-7-1 record accumulating in a postseason berth.

But as Schoen stressed, they still need to see if the plan they executed in the off-season pays off as expected.

"We haven’t been in pads. We’ve got to go out, and the guys have got to work, and they’ve got to earn everything," he said before the team had its first training camp practice. 

"We have created competition at a lot of positions, and that will take shape over the next month. We haven’t even had a practice yet, so it’s hard to give any kind of predictions like that yet.

 "We’ve just got to take it day-by-day. Every year it’s different. Each team is different. We’ve got to develop our chemistry, continuity. All that stuff is what training camp is for. ... So, that’s what we’ll work to do over the next 30-some days before our first game." 

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Patricia Traina
PATRICIA TRAINA

Patricia Traina has covered the New York Giants for 30+ seasons, and her work has appeared in multiple media outlets, including The Athletic, Forbes, Bleacher Report, and the Sports Illustrated media group. As a credentialed New York Giants press corps member, Patricia has also covered five Super Bowls (three featuring the Giants), the annual NFL draft, and the NFL Scouting Combine. She is the author of The Big 50: The Men and Moments that Made the New York Giants. In addition to her work with New York Giants On SI, Patricia hosts the Locked On Giants podcast. Patricia is also a member of the Pro Football Writers of America and the Football Writers Association of America.

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