The Joys of Being an NFL General Manager
By Joe Tufaro
Picture yourself as Jerry Reese, General manager of the New York Football Giants. It’s Sunday night in Indianapolis and Tom Brady has just launched a Hail Mary pass to the end zone….incomplete…all your dreams, plans, wishes have come true. Your staff has done a wonderful job and you get the necessary breaks to fulfill your mission. You are a Super Bowl winning GM for the second time in 4 years….Now get to work.
Sunday night you relax a little, and thank everyone around you for their contribution to the success of the season. You reflect on some of the decisions you made, and some of the things that broke your way. You marvel at the fact that an undrafted free agent was one of your best players, and that after all the injuries suffered out of the short offseason, you managed to come out on top.
Monday..Travel day..relax with the family.
Tuesday..Victory parade and pep rally at MetLife Stadium.
Wednesday…Back to work. You start making lists of restricted free agents, unrestricted free agents, injured players, and contracts that might need restructuring. Sign your practice squad players to futures contracts. You call a staff meeting to announce that Friday afternoon all work for the off-season will commence, and therefore all the staffs must have their work complete for presentation. The medical staff, the pro scouting department, and the college scouting department among the most important.
Thursday…Entertain calls from other clubs asking permission to speak to your assistant coaches. Evaluate your own coaching staff. Start working on a contract extension for Tom Coughlin.
Friday…After hearing from the Medical staff on the status of every player injured throughout the season, you start to make lists of needs and how to best fill them. Then the task of placing amounts of money to each position. This is where you look at the free agent lists and see how active you might be once the period starts in March. The next daunting task is to start to build your 7 round draft board. Because the Giants draft by “Best Available Athlete” they must build their board from the first pick through the last. They don’t concentrate just on areas of need, or who might be available around #32. They start from the top and honestly rank every player in the draft. It takes a lot more work, but it’s the only way to know if you have a true find at your designated spot.
Quite the week, and I am sure Mr. Reese wouldn’t trade it for any other scenario in the world. Great job Jerry.
Now Back To Work!