Giants do what they had to do with Joe Schoen

The Giants should have fired Joe Schoen along with Brian Daboll last fall.

But they did not do that, so they had to do what they did on Thursday — give the embattled general manager and John Harbaugh’s New Best Friend a contract extension.

It is a “multi-year” deal, according to all the national scoop merchants who Schoen has clearly cultivated over the years, benefitting from their friendly framing of Big Blue’s many foibles under his watch.

Obviously those two words in quotes are doing a lot of work. The specifics — which will likely remain under wraps for a while — are important here. Schoen was entering the final year of his initial contract. A gentlemanly one-year extension would have proven little about his long-term job security, no matter what Harbaugh or the scoop guys or the local press corps’ Big Blue Pom-Pom Brigade said. 

Will the Giants make the playoffs in John Harbaugh’s first year? See the latest season win totals on DraftKings

Going multiple years shows something, but how much is hard to ascertain. Multi could mean two years; it could mean three or four. No contract length guarantees any coach or GM will stay put — it’s just money, after all. But the number of years does typically signal at least directionally how solid one’s standing is.

Regardless: Once the Giants (and Harbaugh) decided to let Schoen stick around, they had to give him an extension.

We think it’s a bad move because he has proven to be a thin-skinned builder of bad football teams. Yes, he has had some successes — Jaxson Dart, Malik Nabers, etc. — but even those are not enough in our eyes. But we don’t own the team. And besides, everyone with a brain knows that Harbaugh runs the show. So it is done and everyone in East Rutherford can get back to the parade planning.