With the calendar flipped to July, Giants.com asks 22 important questions leading up to the start of the 2022 training camp at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center.
For 22 days, a member of the Giants.com crew will answer one question about the roster, coaching staff, schedule, and much more.
No. 1: What is the vision of the new regime heading into Year 1?
Dan Salomone: On Jan. 12, 2022, team president John Mara said, "We needed to hit the reset button." Enter general manager Joe Schoen and coach Brian Daboll, who most recently helped build the Buffalo Bills into an AFC powerhouse after the franchise went through a 17-year playoff drought.
From Day 1, Schoen and Daboll stressed the importance of getting the right people in the right seats and energizing the building. That has been palpable to everyone from the cafeteria to the football field. "It's just a contagious energy that's being brought right now," veteran defensive lineman Leonard Williams said.
Fast-forwarding to May, we each picked one word to describe the vision of the new regime for an edition of Cover 3, and the words we came up with were "fresh," "adaptive" and "calculated." From the personnel side, Schoen was candid about the need to make "tough decisions" to get in better salary cap health before making two draft picks in the top 10 for the first time in Giants history. He also made a series of moves in the football operations department regarding analytics.
"Anything that will help you get better or improve the roster or improve our salary cap situation or our practice habits or injuries, whatever it may be, I'm open to that," Schoen said this offseason. "I'd be an idiot not to be open to it. Over the last few years, I've immersed myself in the data and worked with some really smart people that have helped us make good decisions based off that."
From an Xs and Os standpoint, Daboll believes in empowering players to play fast and aggressively.
"You never want to throw interceptions, but I think just the idea to be aggressive and take your shots and see if you can make something happen," quarterback Daniel Jones said. "Kind of let the receivers know that we're going to do that, we're going to give you all opportunities to make plays and we're counting on you to make plays in situations. I think that's kind of a mindset he has to attack a defense, attack downfield and as a quarterback, a decision-maker, you're a big part of that."
The same applies to the other side of the ball. Defensive coordinator Wink Martindale will never drive home after a game and say to himself, "I wish I didn't play max coverage there." He wants to put the game in the players' hands "because this game always has been and always will be about the players."
So, whether it's making a roster move or calling a fourth-down play, there is always a method.
"When you talk about men with a master plan, they have the master plan," rookie Kayvon Thibodeaux recalled about his pre-draft interviews. "And now it's just about for us to buy into that culture and be a keeper of the culture."
Take a look at rare photos of New York Giants training camps through the years.
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