Comparing two different roster building strategies after two seasons

Have the Giants or the Vikings done it better?

With just a couple weeks before the start of the new NFL year, it’s crunch time for Giants’ GM Joe Schoen. And unlike the past two years, how Schoen navigates the next couple months could determine his future with the Giants organization. For a variety of reasons, this could be a make-or-break offseason for Joe Schoen. It’s not that he’s on the hot seat at the moment, but he is entering year three of a four-year contract. Schoen has done some good things, but he’s yet to make his bones as general manager with the Giants organization.

You probably didn’t find anything remarkable about the paragraph above. It fairly accurately describes the New York Giants situation at the moment. The thing is, the paragraph is not mine. It’s lifted verbatim from a recent article on Big Blue View’s sister SB Nation site for the Minnesota Vikings, titled “It’s Crunch Time for Kwesi,” and the only changes I made were to swap out “Vikings” and replace it with “Giants,” and to swap out “Kwesi Adofo-Mensah” for “Joe Schoen.” The only tell is that the article was published on March 1, hence the statement that there are “a couple weeks” before the start of the NFL season, whereas now we are only days away from free agency madness. Adofo-Mensah and Schoen are in almost the exact same situation, right down to the lengths of their contracts and a major decision looming about the quarterback position, while coming off seasons that did not match the promise of their first ones with a new head coach.

The last time we saw the Giants and Vikings, they were walking off the U.S. Bank Stadium field after the Giants’ thrilling and impressive Wild Card Game victory. Neither team expected to be in the playoffs, but Minnesota put up an unexpected 13-4 regular season record and the Giants an almost-as-unexpected 9-7-1 record. The Giants of course were unceremoniously ousted from the playoffs the following week. Both teams entered the 2023 off-season with an over-arching question to answer: Where do they go from here? Go for it, or rebuild?

Different strategies, or a matter of degree?

Adofo-Mensah had described his philosophy when hired as a “competitive rebuild.” By that he meant not “tearing it down” completely, getting rid of many veterans with big contracts and swallowing a lot of dead money in the process. Adofo-Mensah didn’t do all that much rebuild in his first season (when he inherited a $15M salary cap deficit), but he signed CB Patrick Peterson and edge defender Za’Darius Smith, who were gone after one season. After the loss to the Giants, he also jettisoned or let walk a number of other high-priced veterans: Dalvin Cook, Adam Thielen, Dalvin Tomlinson, and Eric Kendricks.

His one big acquisition in 2022 was tight end T.J. Hockenson, acquired by swapping second and third round picks for a fourth and a conditional fourth round pick. The low price was due to Hockenson’s rookie contract expiration; Minnesota wound up giving Hockenson four years at $17M per year. Was it worth it? He’s a very good TE, but my lasting memory of the 6-foot-5, 248-pound Hockenson was him getting stood up and pushed out of bounds by 6-foot, 201-pound Xavier McKinney after a 3-yard catch on fourth-and-8 to seal the Giants’ playoff win.

In 2023, Adofo-Mensah’s major free agent acquisitions were edge defender Marcus Davenport and CB Byron Murphy Jr., both of whom played a lot but neither of whom made much impact in their first season.

Schoen inherited an even worse $40M cap overrun with the Giants in 2022, which at least partly explained the release of James Bradberry and the failure to re-sign veterans such as Evan Engram and Lorenzo Carter. He did little on the free agent front out of necessity, signing mostly minimum or near-minimum veterans, his one “splurge” being a modestly priced Mark Glowinski.

After Daniel Jones’ best season and a trip to the Divisional Round, Schoen altered his philosophy somewhat to try to build on the Giants’ success. It was far from a spending spree, but Schoen did pony up $10M per year to linebacker Bobby Okereke, plus modestly priced external free agents Parris Campbell, A’Shawn Robinson, and Rakeem Nunez-Roches. Campbell didn’t work out but is now off the books. Robinson and Nunez-Roches made modest contributions. Whether either or both return is unknown.

Schoen’s biggest move for new talent was to trade a third-round draft pick for Darren Waller. The only signature free agent he let walk was Julian Love, though other veterans who had played significant roles in 2022 such as Nick Gates and Jon Feliciano were not brought back either. His biggest moves of course were the multi-year Jones contract as well as the franchise tag used on Saquon Barkley.

Relative financial health

Perhaps the biggest difference between the two teams at the moment is in their financial situation:

Courtesy of Over The Cap

The Giants and Vikings are both middle-of-the-pack in the NFL in effective cap space (i.e., after signing their 2024 draft classes) at the moment. The Vikings have a bit more because the Giants have somewhat more draft capital. The Giants, however, have $19M in dead money on the books to the Vikings $4.8M. That perhaps is the biggest difference in the philosophies the two GMs have pursued. Schoen restructured a number of contracts last season, pushing costs into the future, to allow him to acquire players like Waller, to make Jones’ contract work, and to allow him to extend Andrew Thomas and Dexter Lawrence on market-level deals. He also absorbed $4.7M in 2024 money to trade Leonard Williams to Seattle, but that was arguably worth it for the 2024 No. 47 draft pick and 2025 fifth round pick he got in return.

No one will argue with the Thomas and Lawrence contract extensions – neither one set the market. Lawrence’s in fact is only fifth highest in the NFL for IDLs. The Jones and Waller contracts are the ones that may come back to haunt Schoen. Jones’ is 13th in the NFL in guaranteed money and 10th in fully guaranteed money, and 2024 is the year in which it’s going to hurt, to the tune of $47.1M, for a player who may or may not be the team’s starter by the end of the 2024 season. There will be a $22.1M dead money charge in 2025 if he does not return.

Waller’s, which is tops in the NFL for tight ends in average annual value but only 12th in total guaranteed money and 10th in fully guaranteed money, depends on whether he is back in 2024 or not. If he’s back and healthy, he’s still a receiving threat – injuries and all, he was still the Giants’ second leading receiver last year. What the Giants gave up to get him – in effect, Kadarius Toney, whose days as a Chief seem to be over – was little. (It will be even less if Tre Hawkins develops into a useful cornerback.) If Waller retires, his remaining cost for 2024-2026 will be off the books…but there will still be $7.4M of dead money due to another restructure that Schoen did.

Schoen admitted that he changed gears a bit after the unexpected success of 2022 and learned a lesson. As reported by Dan Duggan of The Athletic:

“We were trying to add some weapons,” Schoen said. “You do a deal with Daniel, and you see how it was structured, so you try to expedite the process and give him a chance to succeed.”

Schoen said his eyes were opened on unspecified things that need to change after going through this trying season. He even conceded he might have looked at things “through rose-colored glasses” during the successful 2022 season and “maybe you put more weight in something that wasn’t.”

Draft success

Here are the first two drafts from the two GMs:

Courtesy of Pro Football Reference

Fans tend to think a good GM should hit on most of his draft picks. The Vikings article cited at the top of this story has a much more realistic view of drafting college players, likening it to .300 hitters in baseball:

“A good GM, like a good hitter in baseball, has about the same batting average – hitting on about 3 of 10 at-bats with most of them singles.”

Adofo-Mensah arguably completely struck out in the 2022 draft, with none of those draftees having become core or plus players. He did better in 2023: Jordan Addison had a very good rookie season (of course for half of it, the opponent’s CB1 was covering Justin Jefferson, who missed most of the first half of the season). Mekhi Blackmon and Jay Ward provided quality depth in the secondary.

Schoen arguably found three core starters in the 2022 draft: Kayvon Thibodeuax, Wan’Dale Robinson, and Micah McFadden. Depending on whether Evan Neal salvages his career as a starting right tackle, his batting average will have been slightly below or above .300. That doesn’t include Cor’Dale Flott, Daniel Bellinger, and Dane Belton, all of whom have been useful players. The 2023 draft seemingly brought a hit at cornerback, maybe even an extra-base hit, in Tae Banks. If John Michael Schmitz and Jalin Hyatt improve in year two, that will have been a good draft.

Looking forward for both teams

The difference between the two GMs’ philosophies has been more subtle than stark on the field. The Giants came out of the gate 1-5 and finished 6-11. The Vikings began 1-4 and finished 7-10. The Giants lost Jones to a neck injury and then to a season-ending ACL tear in mid-season. The Vikings lost starting quarterback Kirk Cousins to a season-ending Achilles tear in mid-season. The Giants cycled through two other starting QBs: Tyrod Taylor and Tommy DeVito. The Vikings cycled through two other starting QBs: Josh Dobbs and Nick Mullens.

The Giants sit in an NFL East Division that looked like a beast at the start of the season but devolved into one whose two playoff teams went out unceremoniously in the first round. The Vikings, champs of what looked like a weak division a year earlier, now face the prospect of having to beat out the Lions and the Packers, who suddenly have become two of the more formidable teams in the NFL.

Who will quarterback both teams in 2024 – and beyond – is totally up for grabs. The Giants are in better position to draft a QB, sitting at No. 6, than the Vikings at No. 11, but that statement depends on how the two GMs see the current crop of QB prospects. With each week, the desirability of particular prospects rises and falls like a ship tossed in high seas. Caleb Williams is generational…no, he’s a pain in the neck who wants part ownership and can’t play in structure. Drake Maye is a classic QB, the next Justin Herbert…no, he’s inaccurate with bad footwork and doesn’t throw with anticipation. Jayden Daniels is the next Lamar Jackson…no, he pulls the ball down and runs too fast and never throws to the middle of the field. J.J. McCarthy is a gem hidden by a run-first Harbaugh offense…no, he can’t throw to intermediate levels on the left side of the field and has never shown he can hit deep passes. And on, and on, and on.

Will either the Giants or Vikings try to engineer a trade-up? The Giants sit at No. 6, higher than the Vikings at No. 11, in draft order because they won one more game in 2023. (Giants fans lament their team dropping to No. 6 because of meaningless wins against Washington, New England, and Green Bay. The sunny side view would say that the Giants would be drafting much lower had it not been for their messing up on crucial plays in the Bills, Jets, and Rams losses.) Whatever your view, a trade-up for a QB will be much harder for the Vikings, and to boot, the Giants have the fourth-most draft capital in the NFL due to the Leonard Williams trade while the Vikings are only 15th:

Courtesy of Tankathon

The Giants are therefore in better position to trade up should they decide to do so. In addition, like or hate him and his contract, at least Jones is a Giant for this year, so there is someone in-house to play QB in 2024 if the Giants have to wait until Round 2 to get a QB. The Vikings don’t have that luxury at the moment: Cousins is heading to free agency and could command as much as 2 years at $50M per year from another team at age 36. Both teams are going to have to sign a veteran QB as insurance.

Did Joe Schoen do the right or the wrong thing?

As the quote above illustrates, Schoen himself seems to regret some of the moves he made in 2023. He has never expressed regret about the Jones contract, although in retrospect tagging Jones and finding a way to sign Saquon Barkley would have been the better move. Hindsight is always 20-20. Even so, tagging Jones would have made it more difficult to sign Okereke, or to extend Thomas and Lawrence, without pushing even more contract costs into future years.

Seattle is sitting on almost twice as much dead money ($34.9M) as the Giants after making a playoff push that fell short with a now-free agent Leonard Williams. Denver took a swing with Russell Wilson and will shortly have $85M in dead money added to their existing $13.4M with nothing to show for it; they just released safety Justin Simmons. Buffalo is now shedding good starting players because of Josh Allen’s contract. Even though Allen is a top-three QB, Buffalo hasn’t sniffed a Super Bowl yet. Was his contract a mistake? The Dolphins and Chargers are about $30M over the cap. Miami pays the NFL’s best receiver $31M per year, and the Chargers pay one of the best QBs in the NFL $52.5M per year, yet the Giants have one more playoff victory over the past four seasons than either of them.

Coming into 2024, the Giants are in a very uncertain position but are far from being in a very difficult position. They have good draft capital and the most money to spend on free agents that they’ve had in years. Joe Schoen has a decent batting average so far even though he’s whiffed on a few moves. As we know from modern baseball theory, though, a good batting average isn’t really what you want. A good OPS is what you want. To do that, Joe Schoen will have to start hitting more home runs. He’s about to come to the plate, at possibly a fork in the road for his career. I hope he heeds the advice of Yogi Berra and takes it.