Joe Schoen's relentless stance on Giants being in close games made team feel even further from contention
Joe Schoen stepped to the microphone and reaffirmed his trust in the Giants process, and his belief that the team with more losses than any other in football is heading in the right direction.
Those comments come two years after winning a road playoff game.
Sure, Schoen and Brian Daboll’s first season in control of the franchise could be seen as an anomaly, but to say that the team is heading in the right direction with its rebuild? That will be hard for Giants fans to get behind, considering Big Blue is 2-8 with a quarterback in Daniel Jones looking as lost as ever, an offense that continues to struggle to put the ball in the end zone, and no clear path to contending in the NFC East in the near future.
The bulk of Schoen’s press conference on Tuesday was spent hammering home the mindset that the Giants continue to find themselves in close games, and therefore aren’t far off from breaking through and having the kind of success many envisioned after the surprising success of year one.
“Nobody is happy that we’re 2-8...we don’t want to be sitting here at 2-8,” Schoen said. “It’s year three, and we’re 2-8...we’ve been competitive in games, but we want to find ways to win those games.
“Everyone has a hand in this, myself included. It starts with me...there’s not a large margin for error when you go into some of these games. There’s four or five plays in a game that make a difference. That’s what we have to figure out. How to make plays in critical points of the game to get over the hump.”
Sure, the Giants are indeed 1-5 in one-score games, but in year three, expectations are much more focused on results, not process. And the results in New York have not been good. Key draft picks like Deonte Banks and Evan Neal look like busts. Jones has been a disaster since signing his $160 million contract. All of that adds up to a team that is tied for the worst record in football, and the final scores are not giving a frustrated fanbase any kind of consolation.
Not to mention, the “close games” argument is a bit of a mirage.
Ten games into the season, the Giants have the fifth worst point differential in the league, as they have been blown out by playoff contenders like the Eagles, Vikings. They lost by double digits at home to the playoff-hopeful Bengals. When it comes to teams that are in the tier that New York is trying to get to, the results haven’t been particularly close. They have played the seven-win Commanders tight in two divisional battles this season, but other close games include a win over the disastrous Browns in Week 3, a narrow loss to the similarly disastrous Cowboys, and an overtime defeat to the Panthers on Sunday, a squad in the argument with the Giants themselves for the worst team in football right now.
Still, even while being peppered with questions to the contrary, Schoen continued to defend his stance that he believes the Giants are close to turning things around, and that Brian Daboll was the right coach to get that turnaround moving.
“He’s coming in every day and working hard. The team is staying together,” Schoen said. “He’s doing a really good job with the guys are competing and keeping the locker room together. We’re in these games. We just gotta find a way to finish it. We’re 1-5 in one-score games. We gotta find a way to get over the hump.”
Over halfway through year three, and the Giants still haven’t found a way to get past even the base of that hump. Sure, the team is competing and playing it close in many games, but they’ve been mainly destroyed against NFC East competition over the last two years, and regardless of the margin of defeat, they continue to lose, while several high-end draft picks continue to look like mistakes. Not to mention, in Schoen and Daboll’s first season at the helm, Big Blue did show an ability to close out games, as they played in a remarkable 14 one-score games, going 8-4-1 in those contests. When they met a real contender in the playoffs in the Eagles, they were manhandled at the line of scrimmage in a 38-7 embarrassment, and have been looking to get close to a playoff berth ever since.
Should playing close games really matter when there has consistently been problems keeping it close against the best in your own division? Should the focus really be on the fact that the Giants are “moving the ball down the field” when they have been putrid at finishing the job? Sure, the offense has moved at times, but they are also the worst in the league at the most important part: scoring. Big Blue is dead last in the league in percentage of trips to the red zone resulting in touchdowns. They have the second-fewest passing touchdowns in football. They have the fifth-worst quarterback rating in the league. Still, Schoen is focusing on aspects of the Giants that are still not leading to results, or even a hint of optimism that results are coming.
Could Schoen have said anything in his press conference to make fans feel better about their team’s 2-8 record? Most likely not. But rather than own it and express a desire to take a long, hard look at potential changes to start winning football games, Schoen tried to preach how close the Giants are, and in turn, made them feel even further away.
