Giant Football Blog

Jerry Reese not silent this time around, signs Sammy Knight for Giants

Last year, it took Giants GM Jerry Reese three weeks to sign his first free agent. This year it only took him four days.

Reese brought in his first reinforcement Monday when he signed former Jaguars safety Sammy Knight, an 11-year veteran to replace Gibril Wilson, who signed with the Raiders when free agency opened. Knight signed a three-year deal worth $5.15 million and got a signing bonus of $1.25 million. That's quite a bargain compared to the six-year, $39 million contract (with $16 million) that Wilson got from the Oakland Raiders on Friday night. Continue

Giants GM Reese unlikely to chase free agents

It was around this time last year that Giants general manager Jerry Reese started getting serious flak for his job performance. We're talking nasty letters, even nastier phone messages and plenty of skepticism about his ability. Guess that Super Bowl victory answered those questions, don't you think?

Reese made only one key free-agent signing last year, and even giving Kawika Mitchell a one-year deal at the veteran minimum drew criticism. After releasing a handful of players that included left tackle Luke Petitgout, the first-year GM wasn't very popular among Giants fans. Continue

Reese tries to repeat Giant success

Jerry Reese is trying to play hard-to-get at the NFL Scouting Combine but is having little success. Everywhere he goes, someone is bearing down on him offering up a healthy dose of congratulations.

"A lot of 'attaboys' here, a lot of pats on the back," the Giants New York Giants general manager said yesterday during his press briefing in Indianapolis. "You try to run from people so you can watch the players. Everybody's happy for us. It's exciting to be on top in this environment right now, but you can't pat yourself on the back, you have to move on and try to get ready for a new season." Continue

A Giant success

There is no rest for the weary, not even for the Super Bowl champions. And so, Giants general manager Jerry Reese and his entire scouting department yesterday were gathered together at Giants Stadium for the first day of pre-draft meetings, five days after the Giants New York Giants shocked the world with their 17-14 upset of the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.

It would be perfectly understandable if, before getting down to plotting their initial strategy for the NFL Draft on April 26 and 27, the men responsible for putting together one of the best draft classes in team history - at least as far as immediate contributions - took time to bask in the glow of a job well done. Continue

Reese of mind

As Jerry Reese sat in the stands at the University of Phoenix Stadium yesterday gazing at the horde of media scurrying around to interview his players, he couldn't help but remember his first few days as the Giants general manager. "I have a friend who called me and said, 'They didn't give you any days in shorts. They put you right in full pads.' I had to hit the ground running,"Reese said. "But that's part of the job."

Reese won't make one tackle or catch one pass Sunday when the Giants meet the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, but his imprint will be all over the game. Perhaps no general manager in sports has had a better season than Reese, who has quieted any concerns that emerged when he was hired to succeed Ernie Accorsi last year. Continue

Jerry Reese's pieces look Super

It didn't take long for the hate mail to start flowing into John Mara's office. The first piece arrived about a week into the free-agent signing period, as soon the Giants' rabid fan base concluded that the new general manager, an African American, wasn't doing - or spending - enough."I got a lot of mail from fans that said 'What are you doing?'" Mara says. "'You should've gone outside and hired a competent general manager.' It was unbelievable. My response was. 'Can you give the guy a chance?'"

It's been nearly 11 months since Jerry Reese's tenure as GM of the Giants began with the sounds of silence greeting the free-agent market. It's been nine months since his first draft resulted in a list of names that left fans asking "Who?" Continue

Controversy might make Giants GM Reese skittish

First things first: Giants quarterback Eli Manning and general manager Jerry Reese have met a handful of times since Tuesday to make sure there are no issues over Reese's use of the word "skittish" to describe Manning's play in recent weeks.

According to sources familiar with the team's situation, Reese and Manning met privately Tuesday - at Reese's request - to discuss the situation, and both men came away from the meeting satisfied that there were no lingering effects from Reese's comments.

Manning expressed no malice toward Reese, who was at times blunt in his assessment of Manning's play against the Vikings in last week's four-interception performance. And Reese made it clear he believes Manning will bounce back from the disappointment and help lead the Giants to their third consecutive playoff appearance. Continue

Giants GM Jerry Reese calls Eli Manning 'skittish' as critics pile on

Everybody is a critic when it comes to Eli Manning. He's taken hits from fans, media, opponents and Tiki Barber. Even GM Jerry Reese piled on Tuesday when he was quoted as saying Manning looked "skittish" on Sunday. At times the criticism is unfair. Often it's excessive. But really, what did he expect?

"I wonder if Archie (Manning) was thinking 'My son, with his personality, can handle New York,'" said former Jets quarterback Boomer Esiason, an analyst for CBS and a talk-show host on WFAN. "I don't know what he was thinking about. Maybe he should be in Jacksonville. Maybe he should be in Atlanta or New Orleans. New York is going to chew him up right now - and it has chewed him up for the last four years."  Continue

Despite blowout, Giants GM Reese still optimistic

This may sound odd coming from a man whose team just played one of its worst games in recent memory. But barely 24 hours after the Giants got their backsides handed to them in a 41-17 loss to the Vikings on Sunday, Giants general manager Jerry Reese is convinced this team still is better than the one that faced the Ravens in the Super Bowl.

"The team we're playing with right now is better than the one in 2000," he said yesterday. "That team got hot, and that's all you need in the playoffs. Just get hot and win some games." So how does Reese explain what happened Sunday, when Eli Manning got lit up with four interceptions, three of which were returned for touchdowns? Continue

Reese’s pieces

He was right there, actually using his seat at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia because his nerves don't get the better of him and he's able to sit and watch rather than pace and peek. Jerry Reese last January saw how the Giants, weakened considerably by the absence of five starters, did everything but beat the Eagles in an NFC Wild Card playoff game.

Back then, Reese was the director of player personnel. When he took over as general manager, Reese immediately thought back to that 23-20 loss and decided the team he inherited was a good one. “We went to Philadelphia in the playoffs last year, we should have won the game, our defense couldn't hold ‘em, but we played well enough offensively to win the game," Reese recalled this week. “We had seven or eight players out with injuries and we still should have won that game. We couldn't be that far away." Continue

Giants GM Jerry Reese: We'll pay Tom Coughlin later

Jerry Reese expects Tom Coughlin "to be here for a long time," and he hopes to be able to give him a long-term contract extension at the end of the season. But even after a surprising 6-2 first half of the season, the Giants GM isn't ready to do that just yet. Though he heaped praise on Coughlin's first-half work and insisted "Tom is my guy," Reese told the Daily News yesterday that the subject of Coughlin's future has yet to be discussed inside the front office. He left the door slightly open that something could be discussed in the coming months, but said the plan likely would be to wait until after the season instead.

"That's something we're not talking about at this point," Reese said. "You never know what will happen with that, but we're not looking at months from now. We're looking at a couple of weeks from now. That's all our concern is. We're not looking at what the future is for the coaching staff." Continue

Race an issue for Giants GM Reese

Let's rewind Jerry Reese's amazing story. Not all the way back to the beginning. Not all the way back to his dirt-poor childhood in Western Tennessee, when he gutted hogs and cows and picked cotton to help his mother put food on the table for he and his seven brothers and sisters. Not all the way back to his college days at Tennessee-Martin, when the 5-9 runt of a safety twice earned All-Gulf South Conference honors and led his team in tackles as a senior.

Rewind it to a decade after that. Rewind it to 1994. Reese, who had worked his way up the coaching ladder at his alma mater, had just been promoted to assistant head coach. He was in hog heaven. Tennessee-Martin wasn't the big leagues, but it was big enough. For a 29-year-old guy who was just 13 years removed from a house with no indoor plumbing, life didn't get much better than that. Then an old friend stopped by and complicated the hell out of Reese's life. Jeremiah Davis, a former Tennessee-Martin assistant, who now was an NFL scout with the Giants, told Reese of a scouting opening with the NFC East team. "I wasn't really interested,'' Reese said. Continue

Reese: Who needs ya, Mike?

The Giants are getting ready to call Michael Strahan's bluff. With many in the organization convinced that Strahan's training camp holdout is all about money, not a desire to retire, the Giants are making plans to begin this season without him. And if the 35-year-old defensive end thinks the Giants' flirtation with Simeon Rice is a bluff, he may be in for a rude awakening, according to Giants GM Jerry Reese.

"We're very serious (about moving on)," Reese told the Daily News during yesterday's afternoon practice. "We can't sit on our hands waiting to see if the guy is ready to return. "Do we want him here? Sure. But if he wants to retire, we'll wish him the best. We can win without him." Continue

Giants GM talks tough

Not many years ago, the Giants hit training camp determined to blunt the swirl of optimism surrounding a team characterized as a true contender loaded with talent. That surely will not be the case tomorrow when players report to the University at Albany. The Giants aren't anyone's darlings. Jerry Reese likes it better this way.

"I have things to prove," the first-year general manager told The Post. "The coach has something to prove. The quarterback has something to prove, as well as the running back. That gives you a little bit of an edge. A couple of years ago everyone was reading the press clippings. Now people are saying the Giants didn't do enough in the offseason. People are picking us probably third in the NFC East. That motivates me. That should motivate some people." Continue

Reese keeps own counsel

The first thing Ozzie Newsome remembers about Jerry Reese is "the box." Newsome, the Browns' Hall of Fame tight end and the longtime general manager of the Ravens, would travel to workouts of draft-eligible players and see Reese lugging around this bulky contraption used to time drills. The thing weighed about 75 pounds, and fellow scouts always chuckled when they saw Reese put players through assorted workouts trying to gain every last morsel of information.

But Newsome could tell a lot about Reese the way he operated "the box." "When you run 'the box,' you've got to take care of everything, soup to nuts," Newsome said. "You develop an unbelievable experience in everything you're doing, and you're basically your own company for the club you're working for. You get a chance to know a person's work ethic from watching him, and you find out about their organizational skills and their ability to deal with people." Continue

Jerry big day

It sure wouldn't hurt the Giants to come up big in next weekend's NFL Draft. Since their playoff loss in Philadelphia, there hasn't been much movement to excite their fans. No big free-agent signings. Starters have exited (LaVar Arrington, Luke Petitgout, Jay Feely), with no intriguing replacements arriving. There is no reason to believe the Giants are better today than they were at the tail end of last season.

That negative vibe could change if the Giants, for the first time under the direction of new general manager Jerry Reese, make inspired and smart choices in the draft. The Giants have eight picks, including the 20th overall in the first round on Saturday, and desperately need to strengthen the talent level and depth on their roster. Continue