Joe Schoen, the general manager responsible for a Giants team that has sunk to the bottom of the NFL and owns just three wins in their last 25 games, did plenty of talking Tuesday during his rambling bye week press conference.
And while Schoen didn’t actually say much, this was the obvious big takeaway: He is delusional about his own ability to lead this team.
Yes, Schoen took responsibility for his roster-building mistakes, which have led to this year’s 2-11 debacle, after the Giants went 3-14 and 6-11 the past two seasons.
But he also made a desperate and ultimately flimsy case for himself as someone capable of rebuilding the Giants — at a time when it has become blatantly clear that he absolutely is not that guy.
Yet here Schoen is, somehow still employed and leading (for now) the Giants’ coaching search — in the wake of Brian Daboll’s firing — as co-owner John Mara battles cancer.
As Schoen acknowledged Tuesday, it’s not clear if Mara and Steve Tisch will decide after the season to retain him for 2026, since they’re going to evaluate the entire organization at that point.
But while defending himself, Schoen said some truly absurd things — which, along with his track record, should give Mara and Tisch little confidence about keeping him beyond this year.
First, there was this, regarding letting Saquon Barkley walk to the Eagles: “If you bring back a running back, you don’t get Jermaine Eluemunor. You don’t get Jon Runyan.”
Uh, what?
Next question: Why did Schoen deserve to keep his job if Daboll got canned?
“Five wins the last two years, it’s not good enough,” he said, leaning into his primary talking point. “I’m not going to make excuses. We’re going to look at the entire football operation — from free agency decisions, draft decisions, coaching, execution. What can we do better? Because there are pieces here. Why aren’t we maximizing what we have?”
Maybe because they don’t actually have enough pieces, due to Schoen’s errors. How about that? Schoen stammered — and then pushed back.
“Well, I’ll just say this: Nobody’s perfect — and the chances of me batting 1.000 are gone, because I’ve made mistakes,” he said. “Everybody is going to make mistakes. And we’re going to get some things right. As long as you’re learning from those mistakes, that’s what’s most important.
“I’m better today than I was four years ago when I got this job. And a year from now, God willing I’m standing here, I’m going to be better than I am today. And that’s all I can do. Have I screwed up and have I made mistakes? Absolutely. But I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.”
Remember this, too: Schoen’s contract expires after 2026. So if Mara and Tisch decide to bring him back while letting him continue to lead this coaching search, they’ll likely need to give him an extension.
That would be sheer lunacy, based on how the past two-plus seasons have unfolded, after Schoen’s fool’s gold success in 2022.
How bad has it been?
This bad: Last season, the Giants opened 2-13 before getting their third win. Now, they’re 2-11 heading into their bye week, with four non-daunting games left. Of course, if they play like they did Monday night in New England, they won’t win any of them.
If they lose out and win two games for the first time since 1974, that 2-15 record would mark their second-worst season ever. It would check in at a .118 win percentage, just behind 1966, when they went 1-12-1 (.107) and just ahead of 1974 (2-12, .143) and 2024 (3-14, .176).
So it’s still possible that in the Giants’ 100th and 101st seasons, they could deliver the second- and fourth-worst outcomes in franchise history. And Schoen would be responsible for both of them.
He surely could not talk his way out of that mess.
