‘Hard Knocks’ doesn’t provide full view of John Mara and Joe Schoen’s relationship

Here is the one thing about team owners: They might be overbearing or clueless, but most do not meddle.

Owners own. That is how they got to be owners — by being in charge.

Yammer on all you want about meddling, and how that relates to John Mara and his involvement with the Giants, if it makes you feel any better. The franchise has fallen into disarray since the most recent Super Bowl triumph after the 2011 season, and the boss man must take his share of the blame for that.

Go ahead and criticize Mara, but do not accuse him of meddling based on what has been seen so far on “Hard Knocks’’ regarding his interactions with general manager Joe Schoen, mostly about Saquon Barkley hitting free agency and signing with the Eagles.

These snippets of conversations do not encapsulate the full breadth of 2 ¹/₂ years of Schoen and Mara discussing what to do with Barkley. At any point, did anyone see Mara listening, nodding his head then saying “Yeah, well, I want Saquon re-signed, so just figure it out.’’ Mara owns the team, along with Steve Tisch. Unlike Tisch, Mara is at the team facility every day — the Giants are his only business. If Mara wants it, it happens, if it was his wont to pull rank.

Mara does not meddle because an owner, by definition, cannot be an interloper. He pays the bills. If Mara wanted to hire and pay Schoen millions of dollars for Schoen to ultimately do Mara’s bidding, it would be foolhardy and a complete waste of money.

There are those who view what they are seeing on “Hard Knocks’’ as revelatory evidence that the Schoen and Mara relationship is strained. It is fact, not opinion or conjecture, that the two are rock-solid with each other. When Mara said he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if Barkley went to the Eagles, some viewers characterized it as a warning. Of course, it was not. It was the truth. Mara did not want Barkley to leave the Giants, and he certainly did not want to see him head south down to Philly, trading blue for green.

Owners get where they are because they usually get what they want, but Mara did not get what he wanted here. Mara challenged Schoen on this. We saw him ask what happens if Barkley leaves. Does that mean the Giants have to take a running back high in the draft? This was not Mara advocating for that strategy. It was Mara making sure Schoen had an answer as to how to replace the team’s leading rusher.

When Mara reminded Schoen that Barkley was the franchise’s most popular player “by far,’’ this was not Mara putting jersey sales and economics ahead of football. It was Mara making sure Schoen realized the impact of Barkley leaving, what scores of fans might think — heck, what his grandchildren would think — from the perspective of someone who had been with the Giants for a lifetime, as opposed to Schoen’s two-plus years on the scene.

Heck, in “Hard Knocks’’ episode 4, aired Tuesday night on HBO, Mara lays it out as succinctly as possible. He hears from Schoen that the plan is to try to trade up in the first round of the draft to get a quarterback, either Jayden Daniels or Drake Maye, targeting the Patriots at No. 3. Mara admits he will have “palpitations’’ if this scenario is enacted—- after all, he signed off on guaranteeing Daniel Jones $92 million of Mara and Tisch money — but defers to Schoen.

“I got to stand by my conviction, that is if you guys got a conviction on a quarterback, that’s what we do,’’ Mara said.

As a first-time general manager, Schoen is not daunted or blunted by Mara’s everyday presence in the building. Most NFL owners are not around their team nearly as often as Mara. Did you notice in more than one scene, Mara knocks on the door before entering Schoen’s office? An owner who needs to make sure everyone knows who is in charge does not abide by such social graces.

It is not a one-sided deal. Schoen walks down the hall and into the owner’s office more often than the other way around. Mara wants to be in the loop, and he is because he is part of the loop. Schoen, 45, understands the value of “managing up’’ — making sure those above him are kept apprised of the decision-making getting done on a daily basis.

Mara does not always get what he wants, which is a learned trait. His father, Wellington Mara, sat in the back of the room and cried when general manager George Young after the 1993 season said the Giants were parting ways with Phil Simms. The franchise patriarch could have prevented Young from letting Simms go, but he did not intervene.

Schoen and Brian Daboll are as close as a GM and head coach can be. Mara has the synergy he knows is needed in the building. He is a big part of that, too.