Chapter 1: What caused the contract drama surrounding John Harbaugh?
I'm living in that 21st century, doing something mean to it. Do it better than anybody you ever seen do it. Screams from the haters, got a nice ring to it. I guess every superhero need his theme music. No one man should have all that power. The clock's ticking, I just count the hours. Stop tripping, I'm tripping off. Welcome to Giants Nation.
I'm your host, Bobby Skinner, here with my co-host, the football grump, and it's official.
Chapter 2: What was the power struggle in the Giants' coaching negotiations?
All we need is a whistle. John Harbaugh is the New York Giants head coach. You're saying, we already did that episode. Well, if you lived under a rock over the last four days, It almost was an issue. There was issues in the contract. It took from Wednesday night to Saturday at 3.30 to get this thing officially done. So we're kind of going to break that down a little bit.
Ian O'Connor of The Athletic did a great job getting just direct quotes from John Harbaugh on the situation and giving a little bit of clarity. into it, even though we're going to have to wait and see to see what some of these power struggle stuff was about.
Chapter 3: What role did Joe Schoen play in hiring John Harbaugh?
We also have Ken McKusick, our friend from Film Study Ravens on for about a 27 minute interview talking about his experiences with John Harbaugh and what to expect from him. Grump, how are we doing? It's official. John Harbaugh is the head coach.
It's official, John Harbaugh's the head coach, so we can talk about this a lot more confidently. We've also gotten several days rest, so this is not going to be done at 1 o'clock in the morning when the news first broke that they were in agreement and just awaiting a contract. Now we have some further stories of what went on between that episode and now, and it's a lie.
Chapter 4: What insights can we gain about John Harbaugh's coaching style?
It was not just simply signing names to a piece of paper.
Yeah, and so I want to break all that down and talk about, like, the power... There was some, like, form of power struggle going on. But before we get into, like, breaking that down, one, I'm just excited that it's happened. But...
the because I think there was some doubt that it was going to happen not much doubt but you know you know Connor you know asked John Harbaugh Friday night if he'd be the Giants coach and Harbaugh responded with a shrugs emoji you know like I do think there was a path to this not getting done even though I think everybody thought that it would get done number one because the Giants couldn't let this not get done and as much as Harbaugh has a lot of sway and could take a year off like
I think he would have had similar issues looking for power and stuff with the Titans or, you know, the Falcons or whatever.
Chapter 5: Who is Ken McKusick and what insights does he provide?
Maybe not the Falcons, but like the Titans who have a GM in Mike Borgonzi and a president of football operations. But just glad it's done. The thing that I love the most. Because when the Giants retained Joe Shane as GM, I said on that podcast, I want to hear expectations for this. I want you guys to say we're going to win games this year. That is the expectation.
Because year five for a GM, year two for quarterback, and year one for head coach, if those three are good, you should be winning playoff games. So we're just putting a low bar of just make the playoffs. That should be the standard if all these things are working in the right way.
And obviously the Giants have just kind of sidestepped any type of actual expectations every year when they're asked about it. And John Harbaugh goes on the record. I think the Giants roster is strong and it's our job to make it stronger. We are going to compete for the playoffs and for championships. I expect and want to make the playoffs next year. I love that.
Putting an expectation on it, I think he might have done that even if it was a year one GM and looked at as more of a rebuild. But I love that. Put some expectations on this team. The expectation is to go to the playoffs next year. It's an extremely low bar. Half the teams in the NFL make it. Nine wins should get you in it. Make the playoffs. Oh, absolutely.
I mean, the goal every year, what you strive to do every year is to win your division. You win your division, you go to the playoffs. That's a side effect of winning your division.
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Chapter 6: What were the final thoughts on the Giants' coaching situation?
But every single year, I want to beat the Eagles twice.
Chapter 7: How does Harbaugh's coaching experience affect the Giants?
I want to beat the Commanders twice. I want to beat the Cowboys twice. It's nice to hear somebody say that. It's nice to say that, like, having a clear goal is step one. You know what I mean? Like... it's like anything else, right?
Like if you're trying to lose weight, right, you have a goal weight because otherwise, you know, there's nothing to push you forward when you start getting into these good enough areas and good enough.
I mean, like there is no good, like when your division every year, you get to the playoffs, things happen, injuries happen, you know, like how, how is Denver supposed to win next week without their starting quarterback? You know, there are things that can happen that, you know, change your expectation once you're in the playoffs, but,
Chapter 8: What are the expectations for the Giants under Harbaugh's leadership?
But every year, your expectation should be to win your division and go to the playoffs every single year. And when you have that clear goal in mind, every day of work that you put in is a step forward towards that goal. So I'm glad that it was said. I'm glad that we have this standard to work towards.
This feels like a true leader, and I hope that this puts Joe Shane on his ass and get moving because I think Joe Shane's first year as GM was his best in terms of ā putting every single tool at his disposal into making the roster what he could with restrictions on cap space and roster limitations and draft picks that he just inherited.
This is the same situation, and I put this sense of urgency on a collaborative effort within the Giants to get towards that.
It's an extremely similar situation. Keep building on it. The biggest difference is now you have the quarterback that you're supposed to be building around in Jackson Dart, where Daniel Jones was kind of a layover, you know, one-year...
this you know bridge quarterback and then eventually they end up winning and signing him and all that stuff but like with with that part right because that's something where we talk about john harbaugh what's he controlling roster wise here's one thing he's gonna have a lot of control of the fringes right and you mentioned that joe shane did that very well in 2022 and then it became a point of weakness for him the fringes right we're gonna get a couple ravens chargers cast off so get a dc from this place we're gonna bring some of their guys uh
So that's where I'm so confident that John Harbaugh is going to improve the quality of the team next year is around the fringes of the roster. No more scholarships for Buss. Jalen Hyatt should not be on this roster next year. with John Harbaugh. Go get Tylan Wallace or somebody, you know, from the Ravens who's been a backup there who can have a game here or there and contribute on special teams.
So that's where I'm excited for, right? The Giants have reference and their defense of like, hey, look, look what the Patriots and the Bears did, right? Like they turned around. All right. Let's go. Let's go and freaking do it, right? John Harbaugh went to the playoffs in 12 of 18 years that he was a head coach.
There was one year in his entire tenure, in 18 years, the second longest tenured coach in the NFL. Guys do not coach this long anymore. He had one season with less than eight wins. One in that time. There was up and downs with the roster there. There was quarterback issues at times. There was injuries. They had one season with less than eight victories. So that's the standard.
That is the standard. Get to nine wins, get in the playoffs, and win games. Grump, before we break down what this whole issue with the contract and all that stuff, this episode was brought to you by some special people. By the way... The support over the last week has been crazy. These Harbaugh watch streams have been amazing. They've been fun. It was a lot of fun.
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