What a difference a year makes. When Joe Schoen took over the reins as the New York Giants general manager a year ago, he had the unenviable task of cleaning up a mess.
Schoen needed to cut $40 million in salaries while adding talent and depth to a roster that had lost 10 or more games five straight years.
He managed to get all of that done. The Giants filled holes with veterans playing for the minimum salary, rookies, and free agents off the street. They won nine games and qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 2016.
This year, Schoen has already locked up his franchise quarterback, Daniel Jones, for the next four seasons and placed the franchise tag on star running back Saquon Barkley with designs of giving him a long-term deal as well.
The Giants will enter free agency next week with approximately $27 million in available cap space to play with.
After that business was concluded on Tuesday, Schoen met the media with renewed confidence.
“I’ll give you a good example,” Schoen said when asked the difference between this offseason and last year’s. “We were just talking about a player. I won’t name the position or anything. We were like, ‘Yeah, we’re guessing his market might be $2.5 (million),’ and I was like, ‘We can afford that. It’s only $2.5 (million). We can actually afford it.’ We’re not shopping for minimum players anymore. So, even players like that that can be really good depth players will make us that much better.
“So, just having the flexibility now to be creative, go get players at maybe a little bit higher value, but also being able to sign, whether it’s tier three players, two, one, however you do it. We can map it out, and there are players that we can go procure now that maybe we weren’t in the past.”
That will open up a lot of doors for Schoen & Co., while also allowing them to work on in-house contracts and extensions.
“So, this offseason we’ll build a bit. I still believe in building through the draft. And we can sign guys in free agency to help the roster,” Schoen said. “I still think with Daniel and Dexter coming down the road and some of the other players, you’re still going to need to build through the draft because I think there are going to be some players who will be making good money on our roster. So, it’s still going to be important.”
The Giants have many needs to fill and could be active in free agency. They also have nine selections in next month’s NFL draft. That number could rise to as many as 11 if the league awards them the compensatory picks many draft experts are projecting.
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