John Harbaugh Discusses Reporting Directly to Owners

As the Giants and John Harbaugh worked to finalize a deal for him to become the team’s head coach last week, one of the topics of discussion was whether Harbaugh would report directly to management. The Giants had previously had coaches reporting to the General Manager and the discussions took enough time that there were concerns the deal might not come together, but reports over the weekend were that the Giants conceded to the change in operations in order to land Harbaugh. At a Tuesday press conference, Harbaugh said it has been “phenomenally great” working with GM Joe Schoen and downplayed the significance of the reporting structure because all roads still flow to team owner John Mara. “It’s really not that important,” Harbaugh said. “In the big picture, the big scheme of things, I think it’s overblown just a little bit in terms of how it works. The main thing is that it works and that we work together. That’s what matters. That’s kinda what I was used to and it felt like a good way to kinda start off. I think Mr. Mara was happy about that. It seemed like it made sense. I don’t think it really matters, I think we’re all gonna work together. We all report to the boss and the boss is ownership. John Mara is running football operations here — he’s running it — and I’m glad he is.” Senior player personnel executive Chris Mara spoke to reporters about the same issue after the press conference. Mara said, via SNY, that Harbaugh is “the most important cog” in the decision-making process, but added that “final say” will be a collaborative process involving Harbaugh, Schoen and ownership. Collaboration will clearly be part of the operations, but it was clearly important enough to Harbaugh that it became a major point in the negotiations. However he and the team frame it now, the most important cog tends to win any disagreements about which path to take and will make for a very different way of doing business for the Giants in 2026 and beyond.