John Harbaugh, Joe Schoen see eye-to-eye, but new Giants coach will have final say

After all the words had been spoken to formally introduce the new head coach of the Giants on Tuesday afternoon, all that was left was the portrait to mark the occasion.

So general manager Joe Schoen hopped up on the stage that had been set up for the event across the middle of the practice field at the team’s indoor training facility, stood next to John Harbaugh, and the two of them held a shiny Giants helmet while smiling for the cameras like a happy prom couple. Most of the large crowd was already starting to head toward the next part of the event, but those who stayed to watch and capture the exchange were treated to a fascinating spectacle.

The men looked to be about the same height, but at some point in the pose one of them — it was hard to tell who did it first — got up on tippy-toes to become a few inches taller. Pretty soon both men were doing it, stretching their frames as high as possible, even raising their chins, while jostling for the high ground and a position of dominance in the image that will forever illustrate the start of their working relationship.

It was only a second or two of competition and they shared a laugh about it as they both alit to a flat-footed position, but that glimpse may have been more revealing regarding what is about to take place with the Giants than any catchphrase, winky quip or other answer given throughout the day did.

In an ideal, collaborative world, Harbaugh and Schoen will always be at the same height and see eye-to-eye. Both of them — and the members of ownership who spoke at the event — stressed that they will work together to come to a consensus on every matter possible.

But that’s not reality. There are going to be disagreements over who to sign, who to draft, who to cut, who to play. There will be power struggles and elbowing and politics. Someone is eventually going to lose by a vote of 1-1. Schoen used to have the last word in many such matters as the general manager. He was always open to strong suggestions from his staff, or as he was when former head coach Brian Daboll pushed him hard to trade up and select quarterback Jaxson Dart in last spring’s draft, but Schoen was a fan of Dart’s too and ultimately it was he who made that pick.

Now it will be Harbaugh who makes those final calls.

“He’s going to be the most important cog in the wheel, let’s put it that way,” said Chris Mara, the team’s senior player personnel executive who played a larger-than-usual role in luring and signing this hire than he has in the past due to the physical limitations on his brother, Giants president and CEO John Mara.

It is a departure from the way the Giants have done business for most of the past half-century. Not even Bill Parcells or Tom Coughlin had that kind of power. But in order to get Harbaugh to sign his contract, it was something the Giants had to cede to him.

"Listen, life has plenty of changes and we've tried both ways and we're just comfortable doing this with him,” Chris Mara said. “I think with anybody else maybe it might not have happened that way. But everyone was in agreement, so we're good.”

Said Schoen of losing that power: “I’ve been in the league for 26 years and everywhere I’ve been the head coach and general manager work together. That’s the only way it’s going to work. Get on the same page, go through the process . . . I’m not worried about it. That’s just something on a piece of paper that doesn’t matter.”

It apparently mattered quite a bit to Harbaugh, who stalled negotiations at one critical point last week until his voice on organizational decisions was included in that “piece of paper” that wound up being his 50-or-so page contract for five years and about $100 million.

“That’s kind of what I was used to [in Baltimore] and it felt like a good way to kind of start off here,” Harbaugh said. “I think Mr. Mara was happy about that. It seemed like it made sense.”

Schoen and Harbaugh didn’t know each other all that well when this hiring process began. That changed shortly after Harbaugh was fired from the Ravens. At that point he became the top priority for the franchise and nothing — not money, not terms, not even Schoen’s pride — was going to stand in the way of them landing him.

It did require a fast-track courtship between the two men who now stand atop the football segment of the business. So they began talking regularly. They chatted on the phone while watching playoff games together talking about how they see personnel and game management. They huddled to break down the pros and cons of the current Giants roster.

“I expect it to be phenomenally great,” Harbaugh said of his budding relationship with Schoen. “Joe has been around the NFL for years and years. He has a tremendous amount of experience. . . . The idea is let’s work together every single day and let’s build something great.”

They seem to be getting along fine now, but there really hasn’t been anything to disagree about yet.

Harbaugh said ultimately both he and Schoen answer to someone else so really neither of them has the “final word” on anything.

“In the big picture, the big scheme of things, I think it’s overblown just a little bit in terms of how it works,” Harbaugh said. “We all report to the boss and the boss is ownership. John Mara is running football operations here — he’s running it — and I’m glad he is.”

That’s true. And Mara decided that Harbaugh’s voice will carry more weight than Schoen’s.

Now the Schoen-Harbaugh pairing figures to be the most critical aspect of making this hire work.

It was significant, then, that the Giants asked Schoen rather than a member of any of the families that own parts of the organization to introduce Harbaugh on Tuesday. And there was symbolism in having the two of them — just the two of them — photographed together. The Giants wanted to do their best to demonstrate that no one person is really in charge, that their leadership tier is in lockstep. Maybe that will be the case most of the time.

There’s just no way it will be all the time.

“We need to work together, and we're going to come to the final conclusion, and it's always going to be about what's best for the New York Giants,” Schoen said. “I have no problem with that."

Even if he may sometimes need to get up on his tippy-toes now to be seen and heard.