Jerry Reese interview

[Lughead]

Q & A with Senior VP and GM Jerry Reese

Amid hectic schedule, Reese finds time for candid conversation with Giants.com.

By Michael Eisen, Giants.com

 

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March 6, 2007

 

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. � Jerry Reese was named the Giants� Senior Vice President and General Manager seven weeks ago. Since then, his working life has been a whirlwind of meetings, scouting and decision-making. In addition to restructuring the Giants� roster � including the release of Luke Petitgout and LaVar Arrington, among others � Reese is still the team�s Director of Player Personnel, a role that places him in charge of running the Giants� draft. He attended the NFL Scouting Combine and has studied the veterans who are available in the free agency signing period that began on Friday. Reese sat down last week with Giants.com to discuss his first 1� months as the G.M.

 

Q: So, how do you like your new job?

Reese: �I love my new job. It�s busy, but that�s the way it should be this time of the year. You can qualify it as �jobs� � J-O-B-S - because it is really double-duty with doing my old job and my new job. So that makes it a little bit more difficult. But I have good help around me, which makes it doable.�

 

Q: How are you managing or splitting your time between doing the general manager�s duties, such as studying the veteran free agents, while still preparing for the draft?

Reese: �We had the February college meetings (with the team�s scouts), called pre-draft meetings, for about 10 days before we went to the Combine. There were a couple of days before the Combine, then we went right into the Combine for eight days. And now as soon as you get back from the Combine you are trying to finish looking at the veterans, the free agents that you consider bringing in. So there is no down time. Every second of your day is business.�

 

Q: Do you just try to allot times to do certain tasks � for example, spending X amount of time on the veterans today and maybe more on the draft tomorrow?

Reese: �Yes. With my to-do list, I have to stay on task, because it is so easy to get off task. One day (last week), I said I was going to come in the office and all day I was going to look at the rest of the UFAs that I needed to take a look at, knowing that I had spring workout schedules that I needed to work up for the coaches and for myself for the people that did not work at the Combine, and people that we have special interest in going into the draft. There are some guys that we will have special interest in and we will go out and take a look at them as well - we�ll take a harder look. So I had to keep that schedule. You just have to prioritize everything that you do and try to stay on task. It is difficult, because there are so many people that talk to you about different things. It�s difficult to stay on task.�

 

Q: Have you heard from a lot of people congratulating you on becoming the Giants� general manager?

Reese: �I can�t express to you how many people that I heard from. I heard from colleagues, from guys I scouted with when I first started scouting on the road to people that were in kindergarten with me. And all of the people from UT-Martin (University of Tennessee-Martin) and a lot of the kids that I coached there. There were just hundreds of emails, hundreds of phone calls, hundreds of letters. There were flowers. It was overwhelming, it really was. It was very nice and it was really overwhelming. I would say a high percentage of them I didn�t even know who. They were constantly, �You may not remember me, but I was' (this person) or �You may not remember me, but I saw you at the East-West game in the lobby and said hello and just wanted to congratulate you.� There were just hundreds of people.�

 

Q: How does something like that make you feel?

Reese: �Well, I was very humbled by the whole thing, that so many people called to say how happy they were for me and to let me know they felt I was deserving and that they felt like I earned this opportunity. So everybody was happy about that. Even now, when I see my friends at the Combine who I grew up with as a scout they say, �Man, they finally got one of us out of the pits that really earned his stripes to get to where you are.� They are excited about that. Friends are excited about it. They say, �They got one of us, they put one of us in the big chair.� So all of my friends are excited about that. Because a lot of times, guys don�t work their way up. It is usually somebody that comes out of nowhere to get a spot like this. So they were excited about that.�

 

Q: Now that you are in the big chair, do you still consider yourself a scout at heart?

Reese: �I�m always going to be a scout. I said at the press conference, �I will always be a scout.� You will never lose me as a scout. What I know is scouting. But so much more goes into being the general manager than just being a scout. That�s how I grew up � as a scout. That�s what I know. So you will never lose me in that capacity. I�ll always scout to a degree. You obviously can�t scout as much as you would like to. But I�ll always be a scout at heart.�

 

Q: Was there a time when you were at the Combine when you said, �This is fun, this is what I really like to do � watching players, working players out?�

Reese: �The funny part about it is, in the past when I went to the (RCA) Dome to look at the players I could just totally concentrate and look at the floor. But this time my cell phone was ringing, my Blackberry was going off, so it was a little difficult trying to stay on task as far as watching the players and making sure I�m taking care of my general manager�s duties while I�m looking at players. I was at a press conference while the players were working out on the floor. So that was strange for me.�

 

Q: After looking at those 300-plus players at the Combine, are you excited about what is available in this year�s draft?

Reese: "Yes, I am. I said this at the press conference they had for me there ��There are always good players in the draft. But you only get to pick seven guys. You just have to pick the right ones for your team.� So there are good players. There are plenty of players to pick from. I don�t like to qualify a draft � �Well, this is a good draft� or �This is a bad draft.� There are always good players in the draft. You only pick seven. You start out with 10,000. But you have to pick the right seven.�

 

Q: Are you excited that the free agency signing period has started?

Reese: �We are excited about free agency. We have a game plan for free agency. Even though you have a plan going in and you would like everything to go according to your game plan, it doesn�t go that way most of the time. So you have to have backup plans and if you don�t get the first guy you like, you go to the second guy. If you don�t get that, you don�t start reaching for people. You might supplement with the draft, with your draft picks. So right now we have a game plan and we are working our way through that."

 

Q: The two general managers that you worked for here � George Young and Ernie Accorsi � believed in building a team through the draft and using free agency to supplement that process. Is that also your philosophy, to build through the draft first, or do you think you�ll rely more heavily on acquiring veteran players?

Reese: �I think you have to use both of them equally. I don�t think one weighs more than the other, because in different years there are players that fit what you need in free agency and then other years you don�t have those players in free agency. Then you can supplement with the draft. So I think you have to use both of them equally � the draft and free agency. You have to play your hand with both sources.�

 

Q: You said at your introductory news conference that you thought the Giants were good enough to still be playing in the playoffs. You mentioned the team had the talent to move beyond the first round. Having said that, is it safe to assume you believe the roster has a strong foundation and this offseason will be more of a retooling rather than a rebuilding?

Reese: �We have a great foundation. I felt strongly about that. At the end of the season last year, even with all of the injuries that we had, we still went into the game against the Eagles with a good enough team to win that game and go further into the playoffs. There was no question in my mind. Things didn�t break our way, but our team was good enough to advance deeper into the playoffs. I think we had more talent on the team last year than the team we went to the Super Bowl with in 2000. So it does bother you that even though you know you have some injuries, your team is still strong enough, and you could be advancing deeper into the playoffs.

 

�So we are not rebuilding. We are just restructuring a little bit because we have a good core group and we just need to add to them. We will be fine as far as that goes. We are not rebuilding.�

 

Q: You were quoted as saying that you would like to see Jeremy Shockey and Plaxico Burress here in the offseason program? Do you intend to talk to them about that and see if you can convince them to participate, which they haven�t done in the past?

Reese: �Yes, I do. I have put calls in to both of them and left them messages. I�m not sure where they are. They are probably vacationing right now with their families. And I stressed to them that this is not a call to demand that you guys come but I would like for you to come. I think it will help everybody involved to spend some time here with our quarterback. So hopefully they will get the message that I called and we�ll see them a little bit more than we usually see them in the offseason. Hopefully that will work out in our favor.�

[boohyah]

You know, I met Eisen and he seems like a nice guy but he writes such fluff. I hope that since jerry took the job he hasn't spent all his time getting patted on the back. There's just too much work to be done.

 

Another shot at Shockey and Burress by the way. This whole "no showing up at Voluntary mini camp shit" is ridiculous. Again, there's nothing wrong with Eli going to work out with them if he wanted. The org needs to stop the "world revolves around Eli" . He's not proven enough to attain the status that his brother, Brady and the likes have. When he does, then we can talk. Again, a lot of Eli's mistakes last year had nothing to do with timing issues.

[*SDMF*]

Eisen's Q&A's are garbage.

 

 

How do you feel? How's the weather? Have any good BM's lately? Did you get a cold this season? Feel better now?

[Lughead]

Eisen's Q&A's are garbage.

 

 

yeah I know jeesh ,Hell My daughter could ask Reese them questions.

 

I just wish Skip Baylis would shut the HELL UP about college BB so we can get to the Giants segment on cold Pizza I mean damn it they already wasted an hour and twenty minutes of my day

[Lubeck]

Maybe instead of fielding softball questions from the inhouse cheerleader (who personally I think comes in a close second to Hanlon in belief of the "The organization can do no wrong" theory) Reese should be working on getting us some free agents?