Decision Day is here for the Giants.
The second round of interviews for their general manager position concluded on Thursday and there will be no need for a third round. The three finalists this week were all given ample opportunity to state their cases in full-day meetings. By Friday, the Giants should have their choice and then the heavy lifting will begin to find their next head coach.
Bills assistant general manager Joe Schoen had his in-person meeting with the Giants on Tuesday, followed by Chiefs executive director of player personnel Ryan Poles on Wednesday. On Thursday, 49ers assistant general manager Adam Peters got the third and final full-day interview with Giants co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch and also Chris Mara, the senior vice president of player personnel. Peters, as did Schoen and Poles, also sat down with other members of the Giants’ front office and toured the team facility.
A formal press conference to introduce the new general manager will not happen until Monday, at the earliest, but the work to begin rebuilding a broken franchise begins as soon as the hiring is made official.
Schoen and Peters are both 42 years old and each has worked for three different NFL teams — the Bills, Panthers and Dolphins for Schoen, 49ers, Broncos and Patriots for Peters. Poles is younger (36) and has worked only for the Chiefs since his NFL start in 2008.
What all three finalists have in common: Their teams are alive in the playoffs and in action this weekend. One of the three will get the job and immediately jump into the fray to attend to the most pressing issue facing the Giants: Lining up candidates to interview for the head coach position that was vacated when Joe Judge was fired two days after this past regular season ended.
Part of the process of reducing three to one could be how the Giants view the mentors for these candidates. Poles is aligned with Brett Veach. Schoen is aligned with Brandon Beane. Peters is aligned with John Lynch. Veach was aligned with Andy Reid with the Eagles and moved with Reid to Kansas City. Beane got his start with the Panthers, working for Marty Hurney and, yes, Dave Gettleman, who the past four years struggled and failed to rebuild the Giants’ roster. Lynch, as a Hall of Fame safety and then a broadcaster, had no previous front office experience when the 49ers hired him in 2017.
The first action toward finding a head coach came Wednesday, when the Giants asked permission to interview Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn. Former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores and Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll — both of whom previously worked for the Patriots — also are expected to be called in to meet with the Giants.
After the Judge experiment — he was a 38-year-old special teams coordinator — ended after two seasons, the Giants are going to have to decide what they think about possibly hiring another former Bill Belichick assistant, although Flores is much more aligned to the Patriots’ way of doing things than Daboll is.
Flores, 40, has not been exposed to any other system. The first 15 years of his NFL employment were in New England, the first four as a scout and the next 11 as a Belichick assistant, almost exclusively on the defensive side of the ball. Although he was never given the title of defensive coordinator, Flores in 2018 made the defensive calls and his unit helped produce the lowest-scoring Super Bowl in history, as the Patriots beat the Rams 13-3, a bludgeoning that catapulted him into the Dolphins head coaching job. Flores went 24-25 in his three years in Miami, never making the playoffs, but securing winning seasons in back-to-back years for the franchise for the first time since 2003. The Dolphins in 2021 became the first team in NFL history to lose seven consecutive games and then win seven straight in the same season.
Daboll, 46, has a far more varied NFL experience, although he did embark on his NFL coaching career as a 24-year-old assistant in 2000 on Belichick’s first Patriots’ staff. Daboll has been the offensive coordinator for the Browns, Dolphins, Chiefs and Bills and spent one year running the offense for Nick Saban at Alabama, where he directed quarterbacks Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa and won a national championship. He has worked for Belichick disciples — Eric Mangini with the Jets and in Cleveland, Romeo Crennel in Kansas City, Saban in Tuscaloosa — but it is his most recent work, helping to develop Josh Allen in Buffalo, that could land him a promotion.
The Cowboys were eliminated in the wild-card round and so the Giants can speak with Quinn as soon as they are granted permission. Flores was fired by the Dolphins and thus is available immediately. Things get tricker with Daboll. After this weekend, any candidate still alive in the playoffs cannot interview until his team is eliminated. If the Bills lose Sunday night, Daboll would become available right away.