The New York Giants just gave Joe Schoen a multi-year extension. Yes, that Joe Schoen. The one with a 22-45-1 record.
The team announced the extension Thursday, locking in the embattled general manager to continue building the roster alongside new head coach John Harbaugh. If your reaction is somewhere between confusion and a long sigh, you are not alone.
Schoen has been the Giants GM since 2022. Since then, the team has one playoff appearance, which came in his first year before things spiraled. Last season ended 4-13, prompting the firing of Brian Daboll and a search that landed Harbaugh as the new face of football operations.
The pitch from ownership goes like this: Schoen had a good offseason. The draft class looks strong. Free agency was efficient. The roster is younger and more flexible than it has been in years.
There is some truth to that. The Giants did rebuild well this spring, and Harbaugh signed off on Schoen staying. That part matters. Harbaugh was hired with final say over football operations, and you do not give that kind of power to a coach only to make him work with a GM he does not want.
Still, the optics are rough. Schoen’s grades from his own players were among the lowest in the league this year. The Giants have not been a serious playoff contender under his watch. And nothing about the past three seasons screams “reward this man with security.”
Fans on social media reacted exactly the way you would expect, which is to say loudly and not positively. The Giants have not been to an NFC Championship since the 2011 season, and the fan base is past the point of patience.
But here is the case for keeping him. Continuity in the front office while a new head coach builds his program is actually valuable, and Schoen has at least demonstrated he can run a draft. The 2026 class has Day 1 starters in it. The free agency moves filled real holes.
The flip side is that Schoen also has to take ownership of why this team needed Harbaugh in the first place. Drafting Daniel Jones at six, the Saquon Barkley situation, the cap mess they inherited and made worse. Those are not Harbaugh problems. Those are Schoen problems.
The extension buys him time. It does not buy him a leash. Harbaugh will have a real say in what comes next, and ownership is clearly betting that the second act of the Schoen era looks nothing like the first.
If the Giants finish 8-9 or better next year and look like a real team again, this extension will age well. If they bottom out under Harbaugh, Schoen will be the first one out the door regardless of what the contract says. That is how the NFL works.
For now, Giants fans get to sit with the choice. The man who has overseen one of the worst stretches in franchise history is going to keep doing his job.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
