It’s safe to say that New York Giants fans are excited to have Joe Schoen as GM, but some still worry that meddling will prevent Schoen from using his full ability. Those worries aren’t going to be helped by recent comments from John Mara, who says that Schoen doesn’t have more say than Dave Gettleman did in the matter of finding a head coach.
Concerned? Asked John Mara if Joe Schoen has more say than previous GMs on HC hiring:
"No. I don't think so. Our system has always been the same. We rely on the general manager. We rely on his advice, but at the end of the day, ownership has to approve it."
So, nothing changed?
— Jordan Raanan (@JordanRaanan) January 27, 2022
According to Mara, things are the same as they were before. The owners will take Schoen’s opinion into account, but it’s their call in the end.
Of course, this is technically how things are around the NFL as a whole. It’s the owners that are spending the money on staff, and so it’s their call on who to sign. But that doesn’t mean it sounds good for Mara to come out and say Schoen has the same amount of say that Gettleman did.
Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like there will be much disagreement between Mara and Schoen when it comes to the top candidate. That candidate appears to be Brian Daboll, who has already completed two interviews with the Giants.
Daboll is about as uncontroversial of a candidate as you can get, thanks to his key role in a winning organization and his existing connection to Schoen through Buffalo. The only real hang-up is that hiring Daboll would mean pairing a rookie head coach with a rookie GM.
There probably won’t be any problems if Daboll is the candidate that Schoen wants, but after how recent years have gone, that won’t keep a lot of fans from being on edge at any mention of the Mara family playing a role in what should be the GM’s duties.