Giants’ GM search: Interviews reportedly to begin next week

The New York Giants will begin interviews for their vacant general manager position next week, per a report from Judy Battista of NFL.com.

Battista also said the Giants are “unlikely to name one before end of the season so they don't miss chance to talk to candidates currently with teams.”

I have already seen some of the comments on Twitter, and I can already predict some of what will be coming here. “But, but, but, Ed, you said Dave Gettleman was going to be hired by the middle of the week.”

To clarify, what I reported was that over the weekend I was told that a Gettleman hiring “could” take place by the middle of the week. Not that it “would” definitely happen.

It should hardly come as a surprise that the Giants will apparently go at least a bit slower.

When he spoke about the firings of coach Ben McAdoo and GM Jerry, co-owner John Mara said it was “possible” the Giants would hire a GM before the end of this season “if the right candidate comes along.”

Reality is, the candidate pool is limited currently because the Giants can’t interview executives working for other teams at least until their regular seasons are over, and would have to wait until the window in January when teams can talk to candidates whose teams are still in the playoffs.

The Giants can talk to Gettleman now. They can interview interim GM Kevin Abrams, or personnel man Marc Ross. They could interview Scot McCloughan or Louis Riddick if they want to, though there hasn’t been any indication to this point they would interview those two.

Ralph Vacchiano is reporting that in addition to Gettleman and Abrams, the Giants would talk to two or three other candidates in early January.

Gettleman, the former Giants executive and Carolina Panthers GM, will apparently get the first interview. Gary Myers of the Daily News called Gettleman the “clear favorite” and compared him to Secretariat in the race to become Giants’ GM.

So, why not just hire him now?

First and foremost, it is essential to remember that the Giants are a dual ownership. This isn’t Jerry Jones dictating what will and won’t happen with the Dallas Cowboys, or Al Davis back in the day when his fingerprints were all over every move made by the Oakland Raiders.

The Giants are owned equally by the Mara and Tisch families. John Mara is the face of ownership. He is the one who is at the team headquarters constantly, who attends the games, who speaks on behalf of ownership when that is necessary. When an ownership-level decision needs to be made, it is easy to think of it as Mara’s call.

That, though, is not the case.

Steve Tisch is removed from the day-to-day operations of the franchise. He is an award-winning movie producer who is still heavily involved in the entertainment industry. When it comes to decisions like hiring/firing coaches and GMs, though, Tisch’s voice is just as loud, just as important as Mara’s. Both families, after all, own 50 percent of the franchise.

So, there has to be an agreement. Or a compromise. Or one rich, powerful man acquiescing to the other in the case of a clear disagreement.

Thus, it’s not easy. It’s not always going to clean, or quick.

This is just a guess, but perhaps what you have here is one side of the table banging the drum for Gettleman and the other side banging the drum for the field, or at least for finding out what the field contains.

We’ll see how it plays out.