Originally a reply to someone it the comments section and thought I might as well make it a fan post. People love to down play JR's role in our SB but if you look at what went on It was really Accorsi benefitting from JR during his tim as Giants GM. The foundation ppl say he left for JR was largely in place because of JR. Don't take my word for it tho.

For the past four years, Jerry Reese ran the NFL Draft room for the Giants as director of player personnel. Next weekend, Reese for the first time will have the final say.

As the first-year general manager, Reese is filling a dual role. He has yet to hire someone to fill his previous position.

Reese has not exactly hit the ground running. The Giants did not open the floodgates in free agency – their most high-profile addition was linebacker Kavika Mitchell – leaving plenty of holes to be plugged in the draft. Reese blamed an inflated market for the lack of signings.

"We went after some guys and some things just didn’t work out," Reese said. "The money was out of control. There were some guys who some people would consider marginal players [who] got paid astronomical amounts. We didn’t feel it was smart for us to do that."

As far as the players already on the roster, Reese did not offer a glowing endorsement of David Diehl, a starting guard who will move to left tackle after Luke Petitgout was surprisingly released. "Would we like a better player at that position?" Reese said. "Maybe so, but we’ve won games with David Diehl."

The Giants promoted Jerry Reese, 43, to senior vice president and general manager, replacing Ernie Accorsi, who is retiring. Reese spent most of the past five years as the team’s director of player personnel, overseeing college scouting and drafts.

Accorsi promoted Reese to director of player personnel on May 1, 2002. And when Accorsi decided to retire, he told the team’s owners that Reese should be his replacement.

Reese is often credited for seeing the potential of defensive end Osi Umenyiora, a little-known college player at Troy State whom the Giants drafted in the second round of the 2003 draft. Umenyiora had 14½ sacks in 2005 and was named to the Pro Bowl.

Accorsi, wanting to position the Giants for the future, was vigilant about signing players to long-term contracts before he retired. The highest-profile veterans who remain unsigned are center Shaun O’Hara and kicker Jay Feely.

Reese started with the Giants in 1994 as an area scout. I was a scout on the Giants staff at that time and got to know Jerry very well. You could tell Jerry wanted to be the best because he asked a lot of questions and they were always questions that pertained to scouting and how to do things better. He is a very smart and intuitive person and he showed an ability to pick things up quickly.

He also has to have the ability to find and understand talent. Jerry has all those traits. Scouting, just like playing, can be very instinctive and if you don’t have the right instincts you won’t succeed. I always found Jerry to be greatly instinctive and have a very progressive thought process. He can see through the BS and find the player. In some cases it takes scouts years to pick up the nuances of scouting. That wasn’t the case with Reese. Inside of two years you could see in our meetings that Jerry knew what he was talking about and his opinion mattered.

Reese spent five years as an area scout before being promoted to assistant director of pro scouting with the Giants. Not only was he proficient at scouting college talent, but he learned and became very good at scouting at the pro level. Being a pro scout is much different than a college scout. The pro scout not only has to do advance work on upcoming opponents but he also has to study current professional players who may be available in free agency, trades or on a waiver claim. When you scout college talent, you are looking at raw traits and projecting. When you are looking at current pro players the thought process is different. The player as already made it to the "show," so now the evaluation is how good is he as a pro and does he have the traits needed to play in your scheme.

Just like in college scouting, Reese picked up pro scouting very quickly. It was because of his intuitive nature that then-Giants GM Ernie Accorsi promoted Reese to Director of Player Personnel–College Scouting in 2002. As Scouting Director, the Giants made a number of excellent choices. In his first year as Director, they choose Osi Umenyiora, Visanthe Shiancoe and David Diehl. The following year with the 4th pick in the Draft the Giants chose Phillip Rivers and immediately traded him to San Diego for 1st overall pick Eli Manning. Chris Snee and Derrick Ward were also part of that draft. The next year, the Giants chose Justin Tuck, Brandon Jacobs and Corey Webster. All of these players have had significant roles in the Giants success. It was because of his success as a Scouting Director that Reese was appointed GM in January 2007.

As GM, the Giants not only continued having success in their drafting but also began signing prominent role players as free agents. Some of the Giants draft picks in those years have been All-Pro receiver Hakeem Hicks, running back Ahmad Bradshaw and All-Pro defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul. The free agents have been players such as linebacker Michael Boley, safety Antrel Rolle and defensive tackles Chris Canty and Rocky Bernard.

There is not a player on this year’s edition of the New York Giants who Jerry Reese did not have a part in drafting or signing. Yet we seldom see him get any of the credit. Sure, head coach Tom Coughlin does an outstanding job preparing this team but without the expertise of Reese many of these players wouldn’t be on the roster. Reese’s record as a player personnel executive in the league is second to none. Two Super Bowl appearances in five seasons is no easy task. The Giants fans and ownership has one person to thank: Jerry Reese.