Giants legend Chris Snee returns as senior scout; 2 promoted in personnel department

Snee spent the previous two years at Boston College, his alma mater, in what he said was a “developmental role for guys that are up there, but also kind of be the eyes on the high school evaluation.”

He enjoyed the job, but it required numerous trips from his Bergen County, N.J. home to Massachusetts. Snee and his wife Kate have four children, boys aged 20, 17 and 13, and an 8-year-old girl.

The chain of events that led Snee back to the Giants began when he reached out to Schoen.

“It came about by me sending a text,” Snee said. “It was one of those where I met with him a few years ago, and I had some things personally that I wanted to see through, so I couldn’t give the amount of time that was required. And then I took the job at B.C. I didn’t want to be there for a few months and leave, so I stayed there for a couple of years and tried to help up there. I think it was March, early March, I sent Joe a text and it kind of went from there.”

Snee was the Giants’ second-round draft choice in 2004, the same day they acquired Eli Manning in a first-round trade. He was a stalwart on the teams that won Super Bowls XLII and XLVI. In addition to his Pro Bowls, Snee was a first-team all-pro in 2008 and a second teamer in 2009 and 2010.

He started all 141 regular-season games and 11 postseason games in which he played at right guard. Snee missed only 19 games in his 10 seasons, including 13 in 2013, his last year in uniform.

For most of the following offseason, Snee believed he would return to the field. But as the Giants progressed in their spring work, it became evident to Snee that his surgically repaired hips and balky elbow made that impossible. He announced his retirement on July 21, 2014.

Transitioning to his post-playing life challenged Snee in many ways, including keeping up with the Giants.

“It’s been a progression for me,” he said. “The first year I didn’t watch at all. I didn’t watch one game. That was even when Tom was still the coach. I went to a game later that first year. It was just hard for me. And then I’d watch a little, and then it was more and more. The last couple years, I’ve watched as many games as my schedule would allow. If I wasn’t driving to Boston or somewhere else, or coaching (his children’s youth teams), I was watching the game for sure and paying attention. Always rooting for them, but I didn’t watch because I wanted to keep playing. It was just hard to walk away.”

A decade later, Snee savors the opportunity to walk back into the Quest Diagnostics Training Center as a Giants scout.

“I retired when I was 32,” Snee said. “I thought I would be able to kind of survive without the game. Some guys can, but I can’t. I wanted to focus on my family, which I’ve done, but they’re older now and I’ve coached them through their years of youth sports. It probably cost me job opportunities, but I wouldn’t go back and change a thing. Those years you can’t get back. People approached me from the finance world and real estate, and it just boiled down to, do I want to learn something new, or do I want to stay in the game that I love? I love football. I love everything about it. So, even in my years where I wasn’t with an organization, I was still on the field in town coaching the kids or helping out with high school.”

*La Testa first worked for the Giants as a pro personnel training camp intern in 2015. The following season, he was a pro personnel intern. In 2017, La Testa was a scouting assistant before becoming a pro scout in 2018.

Tisch joined the Giants in February 2018 as a player personnel assistant. Several months later, he was named a football operations assistant, a title he kept until his promotion to manager, football administration.