Joe Schoen ‘not that popular’ in Giants locker room ‘at all’

If New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll are to keep their job after this season, they will need to do two things: Win some games and keep the locker room intact.

Both of those feel like a tall order at this point, especially in the aftermath of benching quarterback Daniel Jones, which upset defensive captain Dexter Lawrence.

The recent release of cornerback Nick McCloud also weakened the team on defense and special teams. Similarly, it was not received well in the locker room.

ESPN’s Jordan Raanan, while speaking with our friends at Talkin’ Giants, revealed that cracks are beginning to form between the current regime and the players.

“I’ve talked to plenty of guys in the locker room and those kind of things bother them,” Raanan said of the McCloud release. “The GM is not that popular in the locker room at all. So, these things do matter.”

The McCloud release, and specifically how Schoen approached it, did not go over well with several of the players. Raanan also pointed out that players liking Saquon Barkley’s posts, Darius Slayton’s “free man” comment that he later tried to explain away, and other examples are no accident.

But the issues didn’t begin this season. Raanan notes that tensions began to bubble in 2023 after Tyrod Taylor lost the job to DeVito following an injury.

During HBO’s “Hard Knocks: Offseason with the New York Giants,” Schoen appeared to indicate that Taylor would return as the backup. Raanan says that was never going to happen, which proves how out of touch he is with the actual players.

“The funny thing is their misevaluation of (the situation). If Hard Knocks was true, they really thought Tyrod might come back,” Raanan said. “He wasn’t going to come back. He didn’t like that he lost his job by injury again and to Tommy DeVito.

“If the front office really thought that, they’re completely out of touch.”

Ultimately, Raanan believes, both Schoen and Daboll will return in 2025 unless there is a full mutiny in the locker room or a string of humiliating losses to end the season.

The latter is to be determined, but the former has a foothold. And now Schoen and Daboll are relying on Tommy Cutlets to play well, spark the locker room, and keep their jobs safe.