Joe Schoen was the first of the nine candidates the Giants met with in an all-remote first round of interviews for their all-important vacant general manager position.
Schoen on Tuesday became the first candidate to meet in person with the Giants in the second round of interviews. There may or may not be significance to Schoen batting leadoff not once, but twice, but there is no denying he is a bonafide NFL front office executive and those in the know around the league anticipate he will have the opportunity to run a team of his own sooner, rather than later.
Schoen, the Bills’ assistant general manager, is a strong option to eventually get hired to fill the most important football role in the Giants organization.
Ryan Poles, at 36 the youngest of the nine candidates, also made the second round and will meet with the Giants on Wednesday. Poles is the Chiefs’ executive director of player personnel. This next round of interviews will take place at the Giants’ facility.
Schoen and Poles’ teams, the Bills and Chiefs, meet on Sunday in an AFC divisional playoff game in Kansas City. The Giants have not been in the postseason in five years and they want to hire someone from outside their organization to show them the way back in.
Schoen, 42, does not have any direct connection to the Giants, but in 2008 he was hired by Bill Parcells as a national scout for the Dolphins, and Parcells will no-doubt offer a strong recommendation, if asked.
Schoen in Buffalo works closely with GM Brandon Beane, who can certainly be considered a mentor. Schoen in 2001 accepted an internship with the Panthers – in the ticket office – and it was in Carolina where he developed a working relationship with Beane.
When Beane in 2017 left to become the general manager in Buffalo, he hired Schoen to be his assistant. Schoen at the time was with the Dolphins as a scout and, eventually, the director of player personnel.
In Buffalo, Beane and Schoen built a roster and turned around the fortunes of a franchise that had not been in the playoffs for 17 consecutive years before their arrival. The Bills have been in the playoffs four of the last five years and won the AFC East the past two seasons.
The Giants this week will meet those who advanced into the second round and hope to have a new general manager in place by the end of the week. Other teams have already begun interviews for their head coaching vacancies and the Giants, who fired Joe Judge after two years, do not want to fall too far behind. If Schoen gets the job, it is expected he will endorse Brian Daboll, the Bills’ offensive coordinator.
Poles is the definition of a “fast riser.’’ He was an offensive lineman at Boston College – he blocked for Matt Ryan – and in 2008, the year after his playing career ended, he got started as a recruiting director at his alma mater. In 2009, he was hired by the Chiefs as a scout and in the next decade received four promotions. Last year, he was a finalist for the Panthers’ general manager job and in this cycle he has attracted interest from the Bears and Vikings.
The others from the first round of interviews: Ran Carthon (49ers director of player personnel), Adam Peters (49ers assistant general manager), Adrian Wilson (Cardinals vice president of pro personnel), Quentin Harris (Cardinals vice president of player personneL), Ryan Cowden (Titans vice president of player personnel), Monti Ossenfort (Titans director of player personnel) and Joe Hortiz (Ravens director of player personnel).
