Let’s consider how different things might have been by now
Tony DelGenio’s terrific piece on the sometimes forgotten things that could have gone differently and prevented the New York Giants from surprisingly making the playoffs in 2022 got me thinking.
GM Joe Schoen has said on multiple occasions that the results of 2022 caused him to try and accelerate the rebuild he knew he had undertaken. What Schoen has never done is listed the decisions he made that offseason that might not have been part of the plan, and that might have contributed to at least temporarily derailing the needed rebuild.
I can think of five without having to rattle my aging brain all that hard. Here they are:
The Daniel Jones contract
Without that surprising 2022 season, the Giants would have moved on from Jones sooner than they did. I have said before that I know Schoen was surprised to end up signing Jones to that contract because I had asked him directly. Here is what I asked him, and what he said:
Q: When a new regime comes in – you and Dabs came in last year – this is not how this usually goes when there’s a quarterback in place that there’s a question about. I’m curious if a year ago you thought you’d be here today – signing Daniel to a long-term contract and when you really thought that that’s the direction that you wanted to go.
A: I would say if I thought I was going to be here a year ago, I would’ve done the fifth-year option. But again, I knew from doing work on Daniel coming out of the draft, the type of person he was. From everybody in the building, the type of person he was, his work ethic. He has all the physical tools. He’s athletic. He can make all the throws. Just the situation he was in, I do think you have to look into that. Year two and three, what he went through. The talent that was around him, the injuries. There’s a lot that went into it. But being around Daniel for the last 13 months and seeing him play and the fourth-quarter comebacks and winning a playoff game on the road, there’s a lot of positives that a 25-year-old young man just displayed throughout the season. And the upside, I’ve got a lot of belief in our staff and Daniel’s work ethic and their relationship that will continue to grow, and Daniel will continue to get better. If he’s just at his floor right now, I’m really excited about what his ceiling is going to be.
Jones was not a prolific passer that season with just 15 touchdown passes. He was, though, a prolific runner with 708 rushing yards. He was also efficient, throwing just five interceptions and leading the league with a 1.1% interception rate. Jones also led a career-best five game-winning drives in 2022.
As it turned out, the upside that Schoen was excited about never materialized. The 2022 season was the best it got for Jones as a Giant.
Not signing Saquon Barkley
There are things about the way the Giants negotiated with Barkley that I will never understand. Through the fantastic reporting of the New York Post’s Ryan Dunleavy, we know that Barkley rejected a couple of offers from New York.
Once, Barkley turned down a three-year deal with an $11 million annual value. The sides got within $2 million of a deal. Why the Giants didn’t bridge that gap, I don’t know.
Another rejected offer was $13 million per year with $19.5 million guaranteed over two seasons. Why the Giants would not offer Barkley $24 million guaranteed, the rough equivalent of two franchise tags, is a mystery.
We know how all of that played out. We get to watch it in the playoffs as Barkley helps his Philadelphia Eagles.
What, though, if another scenario had played out? What if the Giants had been awful in 2022? A three- or six-win disaster obviously in need of a complete restoration?
Would Schoen have considered trading Barkley for serious draft capital before the 2023 draft? If not then, would he seriously have considered offers at the 2023 trade deadline?
How much different would the Giants be if Schoen had traded Barkley? What could they have gotten for him?
We will never know, but it is certainly worth thinking about.
The Deonte Banks trade
You will notice that the next three items are all trades that cost Schoen and the Giants draft assets. As a general rule, you do not trade away draft assets in a rebuild UNLESS you are using them to go get the quarterback you believe can lead your franchise for the next 8-10 years.
As Tony rightly pointed out, without the playoff season in 2022 the Giants would have been much higher in the draft order than 25th and would have had a different group of players to choose from. Even if they could not have gotten Bryce Young or C.J. Stroud, there are a lot of good players taken in the top 23 picks who have been superior to Banks thus far in their careers.
In retrospect, Schoen probably didn’t even need to move up a spot to get Banks in 2024. Even if he had missed out on Banks, cornerback Joey Porter Jr. went No. 33 overall to the Pittsburgh Steelers. He hasn’t been great, but he has been somewhat better than Banks over his two seasons.
The Giants gave up the 160th pick (Round 5) in that trade. They took running back Eric Gray No. 172, but Chase Brown went to the Cincinnati Bengals at No. 163. Schoen has said on occasion that they took Gray because other players they liked as running back/return men were off the board. Houston Texans starting linebacker Henry To’o To’o was taken 167th.
The Giants also surrendered pick No. 240 (Round 7) in that trade. Safety Anthony Johnson went to the Green Bay Packers at No. 243 and was claimed on waivers by the Giants a year later.
The Darren Waller trade
This is an obvious move that never would have happened had the Giants not made the playoffs the season before. You don’t trade for a past-his-prime 31-year-old tight end with a long injury history as part of a rebuild. You do that if you think he can be a useful piece on a playoff-caliber team.
The Giants gave up the 100th pick in the draft for Waller. Waller, though, played in just 11 games, caught 52 passes and, after a protracted decision-making process last offseason, retired from football. With the No. 100 pick the Giants gave them Las Vegas Raiders took wide receiver Tre Tucker, who caught 47 passes for 539 yards and three TDs last season.
Just for your consideration, here are three more starting-caliber players taken shortly after pick No. 100:
At No. 102, the Minnesota Vikings took cornerback Mekhi Blackmon. At No. 108, the Seattle Seahawks took guard Anthony Bradford. At. No. 111, the Cleveland Browns took offensive tackle Dawand Jones.
The Jalin Hyatt trade
Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll were obviously enamored with Hyatt. If you watched some of the video released by the Giants after the 2023 draft, you know that Hyatt was a strong consideration for them in Round 2 when they selected center John Michael Schmitz.
When Hyatt was still sitting on the board early in Round 3, the Giants gave up their third-round pick (No. 89) and their fourth-round pick (No. 128) to have the chance to select him.
The net result of the Waller and Hyatt trades was that the allegedly rebuilding Giants went from pick No. 73 to pick No. 172, that’s 99 selections or almost three full rounds including compensatory picks, without a pick.
Look for yourself to see more of the useful players who could have been taken between the Giants’ original pick at No. 89 and when they chose Gray at No. 172. Oh, and I wouldn’t dare rub salt in the wound by mentioning that wide receiver Puka Nacua went to the Los Angeles Rams with pick No. 177, last selection of Round 5.