When the New York Giants hired John Harbaugh to be their head coach, the belief was that Joe Schoen was operating on borrowed time as the general manager. He was expected to either be fired this summer or after the season ended, but the Giants instead offered him a contract extension.
He was genuinely sweating bullets at Harbaugh's opening presser, but he has nothing to sweat over now. The pair were reported to have hit it off throughout the offseason, but Schoen's job somehow feels less safe than it did before the contract extension because of where the Giants are headed.
However, NBC Sports' Mike Florio doesn't see Harbaugh's reasoning for wanting to keep Schoen in New York is as genuine as you were led to believe. Instead, he thinks that he's meant to be a scapegoat who will receive the brunt of the blame if the 2026 season doesn't go according to plan.
"Harbaugh needs somebody to blame if this year doesn't go well," Florio said. "If you push Schoen out, you don't have anybody to blame if this year doesn't go well. So we give him an extension, so people quit talking about whether or not Joe Schoen is short for the Giants job. They needed to do something because [Schoen] was in the last year of his contract. I just am not ready to say this is the indication that these two are going to go arm-in-arm."
Mike Florio thinks the Giants have an ulterior motive behind the Joe Schoen extension
Florio noted that the 46-year-old was in a contract year, and they needed to do something. You can either fire him now and risk going into the year with a woefully-inexperienced GM, or you can keep your current general manager and allow Harbaugh to bring in his own guy whenever he deems fit.
But if you keep a general manager the fanbase already wants to see get fired. Harbaugh won't get blamed as much in case things actually do go awry for Big Blue. They're being looked at as a team who can do damage and sneak into the playoffs, but it'll get contentious if that doesn't happen.
The G-Men jumped through hoop after hoop to hire the Super Bowl-winning head coach, and they want to give him a long a leash as possible to see things through. There is no world in which they fire Harbaugh before Year 2 or 3, and it's almost guaranteed now that Schoen will be fired before him.
It's a no-lose situation for Harbaugh here. If they make the playoffs, the 63-year-old receives all the credit, but if they disappoint, most of the blame will go to Schoen for his poor roster construction and many mistakes over the years and he'll be fired. But once a new GM comes in, he gets all the heat.
The Chicago Bears did the same thing with Ryan Poles when they hired Ben Johnson last year. They gave Poles a five-year extension banking on him and Johnson to turn the franchise around. And since they made the playoffs in 2025 looks like a good decision so far since, so Harbs is just following suit.
The Giants are putting themselves in a situation for John Harbaugh to thrive, so even though he's the lead decision-maker, Joe Schoen has more to lose in 2026. Because he wasn't extended because New York wanted to. It's because they had no other choice.
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