Did Giants make Joe Schoen decision before hiring of John Harbaugh?

The New York Giants confirming before the Memorial Day holiday that they had signed general manager Joe Schoen to a contract extension left many outsiders scratching their heads. Previous reports suggested that Giants head coach and true head of football operations John Harbaugh was going to show Schoen the door before the team began its summer break. 

On Tuesday morning, NFL insider Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated shared why the Giants giving Schoen an extension "shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone paying close attention" to the situation since last fall. 

Did Giants ownership always plan to have Joe Schoen work together with John Harbaugh?

"If the ownership group was ever looking to walk away from Schoen," Breer wrote, "it had a funny way of showing it. The Giants announced after firing (head coach) Brian Daboll in November that the sitting GM would lead the search to replace the coach. The team then announced in early January that Schoen would be retained. Two weeks later, Harbaugh arrived, and it was Schoen at the podium introducing him at the team’s press conference."

Schoen has reportedly been relegated to "scouting draft prospects 365 days a year" and to "scouring the waiver wire and scouting other teams in the hopes of finding hidden gems after cut day" as part of a regime change that features Giants senior vice president of football operations and strategy Dawn Aponte reporting to Harbaugh. Harbaugh reports directly to team co-owner John Mara, so it made sense when stories emerged hinting that Schoen had no long-term future with the organization when he was in the last year of his contract. 

How Joe Schoen picked up "positive momentum" after hiring of John Harbaugh

"Schoen’s staff was at the Senior Bowl for Harbaugh’s first week on the job," Breer continued, "and Harbaugh didn’t have a coaching staff yet, which afforded the two a ton of 1-on-1 time, through which they’d start organically forging a vision. Harbaugh wanted to infuse the building with new energy, so they flipped the training, video and football administration departments. Another sign that Schoen was staying: the hire of Dawn Aponte, who Schoen worked with for five seasons in Miami, and the empowerment of Aponte in a new Lions–Rams style model, that would allow for Schoen to focus more on talent evaluation and roster building. And all of this positive momentum has continued since."

Nothing that Breer or anybody else says will make Giants fans feel better about the fact that teams assembled by Schoen went 13-38 from the start of the 2023 regular season through January 2026. Giants ownership seemed to confirm last fall that it felt the previously mentioned Daboll was to blame for all that had gone wrong for the club since Week 1 of the 2023 campaign. 

Fair or not, the perception now exists that Harbaugh agrees with such assessments this spring.