John Harbaugh’s introductory Giants pep rally, er, press conference was about what you would expect.
There were a lot of clichés. You would have thought Harbaugh just got hired to coach the University of East Rutherford’s team if you did not know any better. And the questions were almost exclusively of the softball variety. It was typical Day 1, rah-rah, start dreaming about the parade fare — only cranked to 11 because many members of the local press corps are head-over-heels for Harbaugh and desperate for this latest reboot of their beloved Football Giants to work.
That does not mean the event was without some substance. A few takeaways:
Joe Schoen is on the clock
Reality betrayed the Giants’ best efforts to keep up appearances, as is often the case. Harbaugh continued to offer effusive praise for his new general manager, and he may very well mean it. The same with co-owner Chris Mara’s word salad about who has final say on football matters. But if Mara deeming Harbaugh “the most important cog in the wheel” did not make things clear, Schoen’s body language and trademark defensiveness did. This is Harbaugh’s show now. Do not confuse high-minded talk of collaboration with a democracy.
“I’m not worried about that,” he told reporters a little while after he appeared rattled during his brief remarks to start the press conference.
Please don’t put in the newspaper that he is worried, OK.
“I’ve been in the league for 26 years and everywhere I’ve been, the head coach and general manager work together,” Schoen continued. “That’s the only way it’s going to work. Get on the same page, go through the process. Again, we’ve done it everywhere I’ve been. I’m not worried about it. Something on a piece of paper doesn’t matter. We need to work together and we’re going to come to the final conclusion. And it’s always going to be about what’s best for the New York Giants. So I have no problem with that and I’m looking forward to working with him.”
Schoen is entering the final year of his deal and he again refused to address his situation. The guess here is the Giants will give him another year or two after April’s NFL draft for optics. But that means little in the grand scheme. It’s just something on a piece of paper, after all. Harbaugh has the power and Schoen remains at his pleasure, no matter how many grip-and-grin photoshoots they do.
Chris Mara takes the lead (for now)
The Giants made him available to the media as ownership’s representative, which was the right move with John Mara battling cancer. There needs to be a voice at the top and co-owner Steve Tisch has not spoken publicly in years. Some of the leaks about Chris Mara’s role in landing Harbaugh felt a bit self-serving, but he nonetheless deserves plenty of credit. It seems like he truly shepherded the process.
Tom Coughlin with the assist
Chris Mara said the Giants’ former coach was adamant about Harbaugh and connected the parties for the now-legendary initial lunch date in Maryland. Now the hope is Harbaugh can give the franchise what they have desperately missed ever since Coughlin fell on his sword and walked out the door. Side note: No revisionist history here. It was time for Coughlin to go when he left. The Giants’ only mistake was letting former GM Jerry Reese stay. They should have sent him packing at the same time.
The Harbaugh quote everyone will grab on to
His quick monologue about loving football. There is no evidence this has been an issue for the Giants in recent years — the bad rosters assembled by Schoen are most to blame for the losing — but that will not stop many folks from feeling the urge to run through a wall!
We have to have guys who love football. You just have to. It’s football. What are we here for? What do we do? What is this building for? It’s for football. This is a football team. And we need guys who love everything about football. They love the games, they love the practices, they love the weight lifting, they love the meetings, they love the dining hall, they love every part of football. And if you love football, you’re going to want to be here. You’re going to want to drive in that parking lot every single day. You’re going to want to walk through those doors and walk up in those halls, you’re going to want to get in front of that tape and watch every single day because you’re going to be around a bunch of guys that love what you love. They love football. Because that’s what we’re going to be doing. Football. All the time. Every day. And if there are guys around that don’t love football, we’re probably going to let those guys go play somewhere else. Because if you don’t love football, you’re not going to love it here. Because we’ll be doing football. That’s the plan.
As we said — it sounded like a college football coach. That will get old in the big city if wins don’t follow.
The Harbaugh quote we call BS on
“To me, it’s really not that important in the big picture, the big scheme of things,” he said when asked about wanting to report directly to co-owner John Mara — a first for the Giants.
I think it’s kind of overblown a little bit in terms of how it works. But the main thing is that it works and we work together. That’s what matters. That’s kind of what I was used to and it felt like a good way to kind of start off, and I think Mr. Mara was happy about that. It seemed like it made sense and I’m just happy, but I don’t think it really matters. We’re all going to work together and I promise you we all report to the boss, right? And the boss is ownership. John Mara is running football operations here and he’s running it. And I’m glad he is. And that’s also all the families and everyone else involved. That’s where this starts and we respect that, right Joe? And we want the bosses to be happy. We want them to be smiling and happy, we want them to know we’re trying to do things the right way every single day and that’s what matters.
Sure, John. It is not like you had days of protracted negotiations and kept the Titans warm in the bullpen for something that is not all that important.
Where is the introspection?
We’re still waiting for someone to ask Harbaugh about his end in Baltimore. Or to even dare suggest there should be a smidge of skepticism about portraying him as the Giants’ surefire savior. Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti made it quite clear he fired Harbaugh and that he did so without any hesitation. There was no effort to feign it being a mutual parting or anything of that sort. And then you remember the Ravens have arguably underachieved in recent years and there was clearly something amiss between the Harbaugh-Lamar Jackson rumblings and the report the coach lost the locker room in his final days. These seem like worthy questions, no?
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