‘Things I think’: Spotlight from ‘Hard Knocks’ not all flattering

As we end a summer holiday weekend, we are less than three weeks from New York Giants training camp. It’s amazing how quickly we got here! This seems like the perfect time for a brain dump, a ‘Things I think’ regarding some of the stories making news around the Giants.

Michael Lombardi tries to have it both ways

Former NFL executive Michael Lombardi was at it again a few days ago, blasting the Giants on his ‘Lombardi Line’ podcast.

Lombardi’s basic point was that the Giants no longer have an identity.

“If you don’t know who you are, how the hell do you find players out there that can fix it?” Lombardi said. “They really don’t know who they are. They don’t know what a Giant player is. To me, that’s the biggest problem I took away from it. What is a Giant player? Like, who are we? What is our identity? …

“There was no real conversation about what wins in the league. The Giants had that formula for years.”

This is another part of what Lombardi said Wednesday:

“This is a franchise that believed in a system, believed in a process by the great George Young that have kind of deviated away from it. When they brought Shane Bowen in and said what are you looking for in your defense, that goes against everything that the Giants when they were successful believed in.”

Lombardi also criticized the Giants for their continuing support of Daniel Jones.

“There’s a sense in there that Daniel Jones is a good player, that he’s just been unfortunate for three years,” Lombardi said. “There was a stronghold that somewhere on some tape that I can’t find that Daniel Jones has played above the line, which I can’t find that tape. I don’t see it.”

Lombardi might have some salient points. Still, it is hard to take him seriously when he talks about the Giants. This is the same guy who has long been critical of Mara and the Giants for being “stuck in time,” for not being willing to look outside the organization for help, for continuing to use the same college prospect grading system during the Dave Gettleman era that was used in the 1980s by George Young.

Lombardi has also changed his tune on GM Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll. Here is what Lombardi told me in 2022 after the Giants got off to a 5-1 start:

“Well, after having five years of winning 22 games, I think if you continue to go down the same path, that’s called stupidity. And I think that John Mara is one of the nicest people on the planet, and you want him to succeed. But obviously, the people that he had around him didn’t really allow that. And they made a lot of decisions based more out of loyalty. I think if you really sum up the Giants, it’s more they are overly loyal to their people. And they keep people probably longer than they should. And I think sometimes you need a fresh change of pace, you need a fresh look. And I think Joe has brought that. I think Brian’s brought that. Those two guys are united at the hip.

“Over the last five years, whether it’s been [Ben] McAdoo, whether it’s been [Pat] Shurmur, whether it’s been [Joe] Judge, there’s never been true alignment with the front office. There’s never really been true alignment. They’ve never seen the game the same way.

“If you study the history of the NFL teams that win there’s perfect alignment. You could say well Parcells and George Young weren’t always aligned. Yeah, in some degree, that’s true. But they were aligned in terms of how to build the team — size, speed, physicality, how they wanted to play the game, there was total alignment there. They maybe disagreed or whether they should pick Joe Morris or Butch Woolfolk, or whoever that was, but there was alignment on the construction of the team. And there was honesty in the evaluation of the team. That’s something that was missing with the Giants. They were never really honest about their own evaluation. And I think that that’s changed. And I think that’s for the better, and that’s why they’ve been more successful.”

You can’t rip the organization for refusing to go outside for help, for refusing to change its philosophy, for not keeping up with the times, and then rip it for trying to do exactly that.

Letting Saquon Barkley go

Episode 1 of ‘Hard Knocks’ featured the Giants’ decision — Schoen’s decision — to move on from Barkley and set the franchise on a different path. That, of course, brought the whole “was that the right decision?” debate back to the forefront.

Here are two things I believe to be simultaneously true:

1. Barkley might embarrass the Giants by having a monstrous 2024 season and helping the Eagles on a deep run, maybe even a Super Bowl championship.
2. Schoen did the right thing by moving on from Barkley and reallocating the franchise’s resources.

I wrote about Schoen financially and philosophically resetting the Giants’ priorities after Barkley jumped to the Eagles Here is a small part of it:

“Schoen has been clear that he is philosophically aligned with modern analytical beliefs in positional value. You pay quarterbacks before running backs. Safety isn’t a premium position, so you don’t overextend to pay for one. You pay edge defenders. You pay offensive tackles. You spend premium draft assets to get cornerbacks and wide receivers and pass rushers.

“It has been clear that Schoen and coach Brian Daboll want to build a quarterback-centric team, not a running back-centric one. Schoen went a long way toward achieving that goal on Monday.

“The general manager put on a master class in reallocation of resources.”

Episode 1 of ‘Hard Knocks’ made Schoen’s feelings clear:

Schoen also admitted that a big part of the calculation was not paying Barkley for what he thought would be declining production over the length of any long-term contract. He was asked:

“At 27 you guys look at running backs, after that there’s a steep decline?”

His answer:

“Yeah, the data says that.”

“Saquon had like 900 carries [actually nearly 800 touches] at Penn State plus six years in the NFL,” Schoen said. “You gotta start saying bang for your buck.”

In my view, the Giants and the Eagles both made the correct decisions about Barkley.

• The Giants because they are in a long-term building process and allocating large financial resources to a high-mileage back with an injury did not make sense. Signing a less expensive back with lower mileage on his legs and supplementing the position with young players did.
• The Eagles because they are in a championship window where the Super Bowl is the expectation. As a short-term play, Barkley might put them over the top.

‘Hard Knocks’ headache

Is Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk correct that ‘Hard Knocks’ is more trouble than it’s worth for the Giants?

Florio goes through a lengthy explanation largely focused on the team’s internal discussions — and some apparent pushback directed at Schoen — about moving on from Saquon Barkley. He concludes:

“… it doesn’t seem very smart for the Giants — or any team — to welcome cameras and microphones into meetings that need to be completely candid and fully confidential.”

Former Minnesota Vikings GM Jeff Diamond told the ‘Valentine’s Views podcast’ recently that he is glad he never had to deal with the cameras while discussing critical decisions:

“I think it’s very difficult honestly and I’m glad I never had to deal with it. It’s just obtrusive into what you’re trying to do and you’re having conversations about trades, about strategy in terms of free agent signings, in terms of draft and that stuff is pretty privileged information that I certainly wouldn’t want to be on camera talking about.

“It’s just kind of absurd and I know that they can somewhat control that but even still for the coaching staff and their meetings for the players I think it’s difficult. I understand it’s show biz. It’s entertainment. It’s part of the equation when you talk about a multi-billion dollar enterprise that the NFL is, but I’m glad I never had to deal with it.”

Maybe the Giants wish they had edited out Director of Pro Scouting Chris Rossetti saying of defensive tackle Christian Wilkins “I don’t think he’s a difference-making pass rusher on third down.”

Maybe the Giants wish they had edited out some of their Barkley discussions. Still, we don’t know what did get left on the cutting room floor.

I don’t know if Florio is right, but it can’t be comfortable to have critical internal discussions in front of the cameras.