{"id":755448,"date":"2026-02-16T06:30:43","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T06:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/755448\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T06:30:43","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T06:30:43","slug":"latest-on-giants-role-changes-under-harbaugh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/755448\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest On Giants’ Role Changes Under Harbaugh"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fact that hiring John Harbaugh as head coach meant the Giants would be required to change their front office structure<\/a> was no small story. In fact, it was such a big factor that it was part of the reason for a multi-day delay<\/a> between when the team announced its intentions to hire<\/a> Harbaugh and when the deal was finalized<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We\u2019d only really gotten small tidbits about how different the structure would be, but Ian O\u2019Connor of The Athletic dropped a few key details<\/a> this evening that certainly show significant potential change.<\/p>\n

Before O\u2019Connor\u2019s report today, the tidbits that we\u2019d gotten were minor. Harbaugh wanted to have roster input. Harbaugh would report directly to owner John Mara and not general manager Joe Schoen. It was a similar situation to what Harbaugh had grown accustomed to in Baltimore and didn\u2019t seem to be shaking up the boat too much. Schoen wanted to be sure Harbaugh wouldn\u2019t be importing front office staffers to slowly take control of a front office that had been Schoen\u2019s domain.<\/p>\n

That appears to still be mostly the case, but there was one hire of Harbaugh\u2019s that appears to be mixing things up. Per O\u2019Connor, Harbaugh was pivotal in the team\u2019s efforts to hire<\/a> Dawn Aponte away from the league office. Aponte\u2019s position with New York has been designated as senior vice president of football operations and strategy. According to Pat Leonard of NY Daily News Sports, she will be responsible<\/a> for \u201cstrategic planning for football operations, analytics, salary cap management, player contract negotiations, compliance, and working closely with the college and pro personnel departments.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not all Leonard says. If it seems like several of those responsibilities would usually reside with the general manager, it\u2019s because they would. Per Leonard, Schoen has essentially been \u201crelegated to handling scouting<\/a>\u201d and the \u201crest of the building reports to Dawn.\u201d In addition, both O\u2019Connor and Leonard report that Aponte will report to Harbaugh, so it is beginning to look as if Harbaugh is encroaching quite a bit more than initially understood on the duties of the general manager.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor\u2019s report doesn\u2019t pose the situation as nearly as much of a takeover as Leonard is painting it out to be, though. He includes quotes from Harbaugh on how impressed he\u2019s been with Schoen and how well they are working together as they both work on building the team\u2019s new staff and future roster. But, if what Leonard claims is true, it\u2019s hard not to believe that Schoen is getting quietly pushed into a corner. The Giants paid a lot of money and agreed to a lot of concessions in order to bring Harbaugh in to lead their team. Time will tell how each new change will affect the team\u2019s future success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fact that hiring John Harbaugh as head coach meant the Giants would be required to change their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":755449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2067],"tags":[103787,7,519,201,2909,1917,56,2321,2469,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-755448","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-giants","8":"tag-dawn-aponte","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-giants","11":"tag-joe-schoen","12":"tag-john-harbaugh","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-giants","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkgiants","17":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116078906619518348","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}