No need for Joe Schoen to debate his title in John Harbaugh’s Giants show

INDIANAPOLIS — Joe Schoen announced in a surreal scene at the NFL Combine on Tuesday that he is still the Giants’ general manager.

“I am still the general manager of the team and my role has not changed,” Schoen said. “I’m still responsible for running the entire football operation.”

The only problem is that Schoen had just said, 30 seconds earlier, at the same press conference, that “we’ve made reporting changes across the organization.” And one of them, he said, was this “video and analytics report to Dawn” Aponte, the team’s new senior vice president of football operations and strategy.

So wait. What is this ? The entire football operation falls under Schoen? Only part does it? What a stupid PR fight for the Giants and Schoen.

This is now John Harbaugh’s team, and Schoen’s role has absolutely changed. The general manager still runs the scouting team, but the bulk of the Giants’ operations now report to Aponte, and she reports to Harbaugh.

Ironically, Schoen and the organization’s focus on combating the public’s perception of this reality is one of the reasons Harbaugh is making these sweeping changes to the building’s hierarchical structure and staffing.

The Giants have compromised themselves for years by enabling or pushing personal agendas, allowing outsized influence in various hidden corners of the building, focusing more on public perception than the tasks they were hired to do, and selectively assigning responsibilities to some while keeping them apart from others.

So Harbaugh’s explanation of why he hired Aponte on Tuesday was refreshing, encouraging and a perfect fit for what the Giants needed: someone who aligns the entire building under one set of expectations and points it in the same direction.

“It’s integration,” said the coach who earns $20 million a year. “What you’ve understood over all these years, and this is probably very true for any organization, is that you have to be aligned and integrated, and everyone has to work together. There has to be a common understanding, a vision of what you’re trying to accomplish.”

“It requires constant communication,” he continued. “It has to be flat. Everyone has to work together. The idea that there’s too much hierarchy or silos or separate barriers and things like that, just can’t be a part of it. Not in football, not in anything. Someone like Dawn helps Joe and [me]the three of us really, working together to make sure all of our systems are integrated.

The Giants shouldn’t run away from this either.

They hired Harbaugh to revolutionize the way they operate and win. They paid him as their new boss, and so did his last word on Schoen and his direct report to co-owner John Mara.

This has been Schoen’s team for four years. It’s now Harbaugh’s. Nobody disputes that.

It’s true that Schoen is still technically the general manager, and given that he’s a survivor with endorsements at high levels of the organization, it’s of course credible that he could be retained despite the Giants’ track record under his leadership if he accepts this reduced role.

Harbaugh is also a leader. Thus, even if he sometimes shows the need to clearly indicate that he is in charge, he recognizes that delegation and collaboration are elements inherent to the management of an organization and to the ability of employees to contribute to the whole.

Moreover, this arrangement could continue to evolve.

“I’m sure it will always evolve toward what’s best at any given time,” Harbaugh said. “We just organize it the way we organize it because we think that’s the best way to be efficient.”

Schoen was asked directly if he or Aponte would lead the agent or free agent meetings at the NFL Combine, or if it would be done collaboratively. He did not say that he would lead these meetings himself.

Harbaugh’s heavy involvement in scouting players and creating the selection committee, despite Schoen’s title, is another example of how much change will come to how the Giants operate.

The head coach revealed he set up a desk in his hotel room to watch college tapes and see “all the prospects.” He doesn’t even go down to Lucas Oil Stadium to watch players practice, because that film can be transmitted more efficiently to his computer.

How involved does Harbaugh intend to be in scouting and drafting players compared to his role in Baltimore?

“I intend to be the same,” he said. “I was very involved there, and I’m very involved here. We’ve always had an agreement. It’s really a collaboration. That’s why the term I came up with [Ravens Hall of Fame GM] Ozzie [Newsome] after working together for a few years, we figured out how to agree.

“So we had a lot of conversations about players, who we liked and didn’t like, who he wanted, who I wanted, how they ranked, who we could take and not take,” he said. “And Ozzie selected the players, so sometimes I would make my case. But other times he would make his case to me because he didn’t want to take someone that the coach didn’t want, that I didn’t want.”

Harbaugh said “that’s what we’re going to do here.”

“I’m going to watch a ton of guys on tape,” he said. “And I’ll have my opinions, and then we’ll figure it out. And the two biggest opinions will be the general manager’s and the head coach’s. Those will be the two that matter the most. Those are the decision-makers.”

Schoen, meanwhile, admitted he was behind his normal schedule this year because of the coaching search and said Harbaugh’s eye for personnel was impressive.

“He’s been in 18 drafts, so he knows what a third-round pick, a second-round pick looks like,” he said. “He’s unique in that sense because he can put a value on players. And he’s been pretty fair in the evaluations he’s done so far. And he’s very interested in the process. He’s watched several college players already. He’s got a good start on that, which has been impressive.”

And the general manager indicated that while Schoen and the scouts have already created an initial selection committee, he expects Harbaugh to be involved in creating the final selection committee in April.

“Once we get to April, we will gather as a group,” he said. “But the picture as it’s been constructed so far – we had two weeks of meetings in February – it was me and the scouts. It’s already constructed. We call it getting players into the right zip code at this time of year. So what else do we need to figure out in the spring.

“[Then in April] “We’ve really analyzed if we have these three running backs in the second round, how do we want to stack them, and we’re making deep dives,” he added. “So I assume the coach will be part of that process. But as the board stands it has so far come from the staff and myself.

It is therefore recognized that Harbaugh will have a strong influence, even in the Schoen region. And, if things ever go wrong, Harbaugh will have the final say.

“Sometimes I pinch myself, man, John Harbaugh is our head coach,” Schoen said.

These are the words of someone who feels lucky to still be here – and who is.

Here on the new version of the Giants. The Giants by John Harbaugh.