MOBILE, Ala. – Who scouts the scouts?
Joe Shoe, that’s who.
Soon, the new Giants general manager will participate in a two-stage evaluation process as he embarks on his first NFL draft as the last man, as his word will be the last word on which players will enter the Giants’ draw class in 2022.
He has to judge, rate and position the players on the team draft board. With all this intertwined, Schoen must figure out who on his staff to lean on, who has the sharpest eyes, who writes the most comprehensive reports, and who to trust in the key efforts to build the list each year.
Schoen will evaluate the reviewers.
He didn’t show up on the day he was hired, January 21, to lead people to the door. Schoen believes in discovering what he’s got before looking elsewhere – even if the Giants’ house needs extensive repair. The Giants went 4-13 last season and are 22-59 for the past five years. Obviously, they’ve done a poor job in many areas, including and most damagingly, getting talent out of the NFL Draft.
Schoen will make changes to the operation in due course, but before he does, he will work with the contractors to find college players in the draft. This includes Chris Pettit, the director of college scouting, Tim McDonnell and Mark Koncz — the co-directors of player staff — and all the scouts the Giants sent to college campuses and stadiums across the country in 2021.
“We have some really talented people in the building with the Giants who have done a great job with their system and we will continue to develop it,” said Schoen at this week’s Senior Bowl.
Make no mistake, since the scouts report to Schoen, they will be scrutinized. He will start building relationships in the coming months. He took the entire Scouting department out to dinner on Tuesday night.
“I’m looking forward to getting to know them,” said Schoen. “It was good to meet them, find out where they come from, what they are about.”
The new boss will be watching. Schoen said he is ahead of where he usually is in his draft prep this time of year — he’s already studied players expected to go in the first four rounds — and he’s brought all of his concept notes from Buffalo to use with the Giants. . Schoen will hear what the scouts he inherited say about these players and then compare it to the work he did with the Bills.
“So when I go to the meetings it’s really going to be their presentation, their background, evaluation with a player,” said Schoen. “I want to see how they present that to me and how clearly they can talk about the players and what they know about them.”
In the past, Giants scouts did not meet as a group in February to talk about players. Schoen noted how well the meeting worked as a group in Buffalo and he will be bringing this approach to his new team. For two weeks the whole group goes to watch a movie together.
“It’s a good opportunity for me to go through scenarios with the scouts, to see how they think,” said Schoen. “Some people have tunnel vision and will stick to their numbers to death. Some are more flexible. Some are more flexible. are good in background and they are high-graders or low-graders As we go through the process I think there are over 300 names on the board at the moment I’m going to get a good idea of who can do what. ‘
Looking together helps, according to Schoen, in the development of staff. Younger Scouts can hear the more experienced among them destroy a player. For example, if an experienced Scout says, “This guy has really good vision,” then the younger Scout can learn what to look for to measure a player’s field vision.
“We’re talking out loud, it’s not dead quiet,” Schoen added. “I think talking out loud…will help develop the staff and then if they’re sitting in a hotel room in Alabama in November, maybe they’re thinking more about the bigger picture and it helps them be better reviewers.”
Following these all-encompassing film sessions, Schoen will spend time with the scouts during the March combine in Indianapolis and then for approximately three weeks in April at the team facility leading up to the design. Those meetings will be expanded with personnel from the medical, training and psychological departments to offer their analysis of each player.
For now, the way the Giants players rank will remain the same. Schoen recalls once having to change the numbers of nearly 600 players he evaluated because there was a new hire at the top.
“I’ve always said that if I’m in that position, I’ll adapt to the rating scale, how they do things, because it’s easier for one person to do that than it is for 15 people to learn my system,” he said. Shoe. .
Soon the Scouts will have to adapt to what Schoen wants, as he was hired to fix everything that has gone wrong for far too long.