The New York Giants did not agree to pay John Harbaugh $100 million only to coach for three hours on game days. He was hired to help them win in the offseason, too, to use his institutional knowledge of the league to identify, pursue and acquire talent.
All things the Giants had forgotten how to do.
John Mara, co-owner and team president, finally agreed to break longstanding franchise tradition and allow his head coach to report directly to ownership — and not to the general manager — because Harbaugh was different. He was the first Super Bowl champ the Giants had hired at the position, and he stood among the NFL’s top 15 all time in regular-season victories (180) and top 10 all time in postseason victories (13).
Harbaugh has proved he knows what a playoff roster looks like.
And that’s why the Giants need him this week, at the start of free agency, as much as they will need him on opening day in September. Harbaugh’s presence represents the first time the Giants have been a coach-driven production, with the surrounding executives — including general manager Joe Schoen and senior vice president of football operations and strategy Dawn Aponte — cast in the roles of supporting actors.
In the coming days, Harbaugh will make the final call on how to apply the team’s restricted salary-cap space. He will determine which free agents to sign and which to let play for someone else.
He will determine how close the 2026 Giants get this week to the goal he established in an interview with The Athletic the day he was hired.
“I think the Giants’ roster is strong, and it’s our job to make it stronger,” Harbaugh said that day. “We are going to compete for the playoffs and for championships. I expect and want to make the playoffs next year.”
“Playoffs?” a long-suffering Giants fan might’ve replied in his or her best Jim Mora voice. Yep, that’s what the man said about a franchise 60 games under .500 over the last nine seasons.
That would essentially mean turning last year’s 4-13 team into this year’s 10-7 team, and to do it without anything close to the massive cap space the Patriots just used for a far more dramatic turnaround than that. The Giants have little margin for error here, meaning Harbaugh’s expertise will be tested to the max.
Front-office officials were expected to meet Sunday in advance of the legal tampering period, which starts Monday at noon ET, and the official signing period, which starts Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET. Aponte, Schoen and fellow executives Ed Triggs, Chris Rossetti and Brandon Brown have been among the significant voices in the preparation stage, but the new hire, Aponte, is running point on contract negotiations.
The Giants would like to keep their three most impactful free agents — right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor, receiver Wan’Dale Robinson and corner Cor’Dale Flott — but two out of three would be considered a victory, with Robinson expected to be the most difficult of the group to sign.
Eluemunor’s exclusive public comments to The Athletic’s Dan Duggan — “I made sure to let anyone who wanted to hear me know that I believe I’m the best right tackle in the league, and my film proves it” — mirror comments he has made privately to the Giants. One team source said Harbaugh has had multiple productive conversations with the nine-year NFL veteran. If the Giants bring back Eluemunor, it will eliminate the tackle option with the fifth pick in the NFL Draft and open the door for a potentially dominant player at another position of need, such as Ohio State linebacker Sonny Styles.
On other free-agent fronts, don’t expect the Giants to spend big on Baltimore Ravens center Tyler Linderbaum or Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl MVP running back Kenneth Walker III, as much as they’d love to land both players. Ditto for receivers Alec Pierce and Mike Evans, whose asking prices appear too high. The Giants have too many holes to fill to throw a truckload of cash at a singular star, or to do what Harbaugh’s former team did by trading two first-round picks for Maxx Crosby, or to send four picks to the Kansas City Chiefs for Trent McDuffie at $30 million a pop, as the Los Angeles Rams did. (The Giants were never involved in those talks.)
As for the possibility of dealing Kayvon Thibodeaux, the fifth pick of the 2022 draft, that seems to be a 50-50 proposition. The Giants think he’s a pretty damn good football player despite his declining production. If they field an offer of a late second-round pick or high third, perhaps they’ll move him. If not, chances are they’ll keep Thibodeaux and bank on Harbaugh coaching him up in a contract year.
The Giants have moving parts all over the place yet believe they are in a strong position to improve the roster. If they are close on several valuable free agents, they’ll need to be ready to quickly create additional cap space in the event they all say yes.
It’s the ultimate fluid situation, and it takes only one lucrative competing offer to send any team’s offseason ambitions careening off track. This is where front-office synergy is vital.
Schoen made it a point at the NFL Scouting Combine to say his role hasn’t changed and he is “still tasked with leading the entire football operation.” And though Aponte is reporting to Harbaugh, who is reporting to Mara, Schoen hasn’t lost all of his power. Team icon Ronnie Barnes, who oversees all medical services, reports to the GM. The freshly enhanced analytics staff essentially reports to Harbaugh and Schoen. The new director of football video operations, Mike Nobler, was really an Aponte/Schoen hire.
On arrival, Harbaugh wasn’t looking to crush everyone and anyone in his path. He was looking to form the kind of partnerships he had in Baltimore.
But in the end, only one thing guarantees NFL partnerships will remain functional: winning. And the only way for the Giants to win in September and beyond is to start acquiring better football players right now, the kind attracted by a difference-maker in the head coach’s seat.
John Harbaugh will start to earn his $100 million this week.