Should the New York Giants decide to clean house after this historically down season, they may not have to look far for their next general manager.
They have a very talented, young executive-in-waiting right under their roof in Long Island native Brandon Brown, their 35-year-old assistant general manager.
Brown, 35, has been general manager Joe Schoen’s assistant since 2022. He was hired away from the Philadelphia Eagles after five years in their front office under GM Howie Roseman.
Brown is considered one of the top up-and-coming names in the NFL front office carousel and the Giants have a choice to make with him soon or risk losing him.
They could lose Brown as early as next month. This week, he will be front and center at the Front Office and General Manager Accelerator Program at the league meeting in Irving, Texas.
Teams looking for 21st-century football minds will be paying close attention. Brown checks a heckuva lot of boxes. He’s learned both the right way and, unfortunately, the wrong way to run a pro football operation.
Brown had multiple rounds of interviews with the Los Angeles Chargers and Carolina Panthers last winter and was a serious candidate.
This winter, Brown will likely receive more interest among teams seeking to rebuild and modernize. If the Giants aren’t one of those teams, they will likely lose him.
If they do, they would be eligible to receive multiple compensatory third-round draft picks as compensation under NFL 2020 Resolution JC-2A which states:
The employer-club of a minority employee who has been hired by another club as its Head Coach or Primary Football Executive (General Manager) shall receive Draft choice compensation in the form of a compensatory Draft pick in the third round in each of the next two Drafts for an employee hired as either a Head Coach or Primary Football Executive, or for the next three Drafts if it has two employees hired for both positions.
Brown would naturally be hired as a GM and not as a coach, so the Giants would be in line to receive two third-round compensatory picks if he is hired away by another organization.
The next few weeks may be the determinant for Schoen, who has already made massive changes to the Giants’ personnel to no avail. With no quarterback of the future on the roster and much more work to be done, the Giants could seek to start over.
Could they push the reboot button with Brown as their head man?
