Giants’ Joe Schoen tried to ‘plant the seed’ for NFL draft trade with Patriots at combine

The HBO cameras captured Schoen as he spoke with assistant GM Brandon Brown in a suite inside Lucas Oil Stadium about how he was going to approach the Patriots to gauge interest in a swap. 

“You going to take a trek down there?” Brown asked Schoen. 

“Yeah, I’m just going to go down there and say, ‘Hey before you do anything at three just make sure you let us know,’” Schoen responded. “Just plant the seed if you are going to move the pick don’t do so without at least giving us a call. … We’re interested.” 

“I’ll go plant the seed,” Schoen said to Brown before walking away. 

The Giants GM followed through with the plan and walked to the Patriots’ suite to talk with New England’s executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf. 

After taking the conversation to a more isolated area, Schoen laid out his request. 

“Just do this for me, if you guys are going to anything at three, like move out at all — you don’t have to tell me your plan or anything,” Schoen said. “But if you have any inkling just call me.”

Wolf responded by telling Schoen that they had “a couple of teams” call and had similar conversations as the one the two football executives were having then. 

The conversation ended with Schoen asking Wolf to “just keep me in the back of your mind,” and with the New England executive agreeing. 

The upshot of it all was the Patriots ended up taking Maye out of North Carolina despite a strong push by the Giants, who offered their second-round pick this year and their first-round pick in 2025 in an attempt to convince New England. 

The episode of the HBO show certainly intimated that the Giants were looking to move up to take a quarterback after an injury-plagued season by Daniel Jones. 

Earlier in the program, the behind-the-scenes show took viewers inside the meetings the Giants had with several of the top quarterback prospects in the 2024 draft, including Maye, Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels and J.J. McCarthy.