It’s been a whirlwind offseason for the New York Giants, general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll.
The pair took over earlier this year and were tasked with cleaning up the mess left by their predecessors, Dave Gettleman and Joe Judge. The order itself was tall but as the team heads into their summer break, optimism is abound.
“I think we’ve made a lot of progress from where we started,” Daboll said, via Giants Huddle: Front Office Edition. “When you’re coming into a new place and you’re starting out the way you want to do things, it takes a lot of work and a lot of people in the organization have their hands in it.
“I think the people in our building have done a fantastic job from the coaching staff to the scouting staff, to the administrators, the staff have really done a good job of buying in on how we want to do things. And then ultimately, it falls on the players and these guys have been tremendous the last four months or three months, whatever it’s been of putting the time and the effort and the energy to improve each day.”
In addition to cutting upwards $40 million in salary cap space, the Giants also significantly turned over their roster. Nearly 45 percent of the players are offseason imports.
That was by design. Schoen and Daboll had eyes for a very specific kind of player.
“We place a high premium on bringing in intelligent players,” Daboll said, repeating what he’s stated throughout the offseason. “I think we’ve done a good job with that in terms of the free agents that we brought in. And then, the draft process, that’s one of our number one things.
“Between Joe and his staff and the coaches, we really put a lot of work into bringing in our type of people, which one of the things we’re looking for, smart players. From the day we started to where we’re at, I think they’ve done a really good job of picking up the information and continuing to grow in that regard.”
The Giants still have a long way to go, which is something Daboll will acknowledge, but considering what they were up against at the starting line, they’re now in a solid place.
