The New York Giants took part in the first offseason edition of the hit HBO show Hard Knocks, which largely followed the personnel decisions made Giants general manager Joe Schoen ahead of the 2024-25 NFL season.
And in the eyes of former NFL GM Michael Lombardi, the show highlighted some of the major problems within the Giants organization.
The decision-making behind numerous moves this past offseason for the Giants were on full display on Hard Knocks, including the trade for Brian Burns, the signing of Devin Singletary, as well as the heavily criticized decision to let Saquon Barkley go to free agency.
Numerous meetings were shown that helped viewers get a glimpse into the Giants’ thought process throughout free agency and the NFL Draft. But as far as Lombardi is concerned, one major thing was missing throughout the entirety of the show, the discussion of how the Giants get past their NFC East rivals.
“They never said one time in the entire Hard Knocks,” said Lombardi on The Pat McAfee Show. ‘How do we beat Philly? How do we beat Dallas? When they decided to sign Brian Burns…If I would have brought in Al Davis and said ‘Mr. Davis, I would like to sign Brian Burns.’ You know what he would have said to me? He would have said, ‘How many sacks did he get against Kansas City? How many sacks did he get against the Chargers? How many sacks did he get against the Broncos?’ That’s all he cared about. You never heard that.
“What was Burns’ relationship against Dallas? Against Washington? against Philadelphia? That’s the kind of stuff we talk about. It really wasn’t there. To me, it was a little bit offensive. I gotta be honest.”
.@MLombardiNFL was offended by the Giants decision-making during Hard Knocks 😳
“It looks like people were doing their fantasy draft … and that’s offensive to me.” pic.twitter.com/d8KVBj93CL
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) October 24, 2024
McAfee largely agreed with Lombardi, hammering home the importance of division games in the NFL.
“You win the division, obviously you get in the dance and you have a home playoff game,” said McAfee. “Who knows what could happen there? You’ve gotta beat your normal opponents on a regular basis. There has been so many moves that have been made to do that.
“Everybody in the AFC South was chasing Peyton Manning. They were all getting edge rushers. Remember down in Houston, I think it was Charley Casserly maybe. He decided to bring in Mario Williams over Reggie Bush. And they wanted to run his ass out of town. He said, ‘I’m trying to tackle Peyton Manning. Can Reggie Bush get to Peyton Manning?’ It’s a different situation.”
Lombardi later voiced his complaints about how the Giants handled things on Hard Knocks, saying that it “looked like people were doing their fantasy drafts” in their meetings on the show.
“It looks like if we were at some sports bar,” Lombardi said. “It looked like people were doing their fantasy drafts. That’s what it looked like. And that’s offensive to me who spent my career — that’s not how you do it. That’s not how it is done. That’s junk, it’s offensive. Look, I get John Mara. He’s gotta say what he said. But if he ends up having a top-three pick. I mean, are we sure we’re gonna do that again? I don’t know.”
Perhaps some of the important things that Lombardi is referring to were discussed off-camera within the Giants organization. But regardless, as far as he could see there were some major problems within the Giants front office regarding their process throughout the offseason.
