It might seem like a million years ago to the rest of us.
But for Joe Schoen, seeing his boss, Buffalo Bills GM Brandon Beane, return to the draft room on that Thursday night in April 2018 is burned into his memory, and feels like it was yesterday.
“Trust me, we took a quarterback in Buffalo that nobody wanted,” the now New York Giants’ GM says. “Brandon came up for the press conference and was like, ‘Gosh, dang, you would’ve thought somebody’s dog died down there.’ ”
Schoen still has the from the next day, in which venerable columnist Jerry Sullivan declared that Beane, Sean McDermott and Co. had picked “The Josh.”
Six years later, the 22-year-old tagged with that moniker is among the NFL’s best quarterbacks. He’s also playing on a $258 million contract and has carried the Bills to four consecutive AFC East crowns. As for “The Josh”? That was Josh Rosen, who went three picks later to the Arizona Cardinals, lasted a year in Arizona, bounced through seven franchises, and last was in the NFL on the Minnesota Vikings’ practice squad in 2022.
Schoen keeps that newspaper as a reminder, and not because he, Beane or McDermott, or the coach he took with him to New York, Brian Daboll, have it all figured out. For him, it’s more of a reminder to trust your eyes, your ears, your research, your experience, and your gut. It was those things that led that Bills group to a franchise-changing player who, at the time, was ridiculed by scores of would-be personnel gurus on TV, radio and social media.
“Go with your gut—,” Schoen continued. “I’ve known it since I was a first-year scout. I was scouting Calvin Pace. He was a Wake Forest defensive end, and I was a combine scout. You got graded where you put the guy for the league. I wasn’t grading for the Panthers. I was grading for the league.
“I remember my boss said, So I moved him to the second round. Arizona took him in the first. I was wrong on somebody else’s opinion. I was right with my own. I said, ‘.’”
All of these years later, Schoen’s now the one with his finger on the trigger, and for a franchise where the noise around the team always threatens to become a factor.
That’s just the reality of being in New York. And in reimagining a previously insular Giants franchise that got stuck being run a little much like a family business over the decade prior to their arrival, both Schoen and Daboll have had to lean on their own resolve—like they once had in Buffalo—in a plan that they always knew would take time. The hope now is that a whole lot of patience will soon pay off in a very big way.
