Chris Snee once fortified the Giants’ offensive line as a player. Now he’ll try to do it as a scout.
The Giants are hiring Snee, 42, their two-time Super Bowl winning right guard, as a scout on GM Joe Schoen’s staff, a source confirmed to the Daily News on Tuesday morning.
Snee, a Giants Ring of Honor inductee, is a welcome addition to a franchise that has failed to build a consistently capable offensive line since Snee helped protect Eli Manning on the way to Super Bowl victories in the 2007 and 2011 seasons.
Just ask Dr. Kareem McKenzie, the former Giants right tackle alongside Snee who now holds a Ph.D. in Counselor Education and Supervision.
“Being one of the top 100 players in the NFL during his career, an All-Pro and a Pro Bowler, and having the work ethic necessary and the ability to function at that high a level speaks volumes to him, his motivation to be a good player and his recognition of the qualities needed to be good at his position,” McKenzie, 44, told the Daily News on the phone Tuesday afternoon.
“I’m so happy for Chris and his family,” he added. “I look forward to watching him help identify players and bring the Giants back to their former greatness and into their new greatness with players in the NFL draft.”
Snee did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
The Giants have had eight offensive line coaches in the last 10 years, including new hire Carmen Bricillo, who came over from the Las Vegas Raiders. Brian Daboll fired previous line coach Bobby Johnson to hire Bricillo. And Bricillo hired James Ferentz, 34, his former New England Patriots center, as his new assistant O-line coach.
Now Schoen is adding Snee, the Giants’ 2007 second-round pick, to try to help fix what recently has been a broken scouting process up front, including Schoen’s 2022 draft picks of No. 7 overall tackle Evan Neal and mid-round guards Josh Ezeudu and Marcus McKethan.
Snee, a four-time Pro Bowler and former All-Pro who started 141 games for the Giants from 2004-13, has been eager to reunite with the Giants for some time. A return was rebuffed a few years ago, but he is now being welcomed back into the fold appropriately as the Giants celebrate their 100th season as a franchise.
“From my standpoint, I would say it’s long overdue that he’s being included into the organization and coming home to contribute, being a part of some of the greatest teams for the New York Giants,” McKenzie said. “But everything happens in due time.
“This is the right time I would say, especially for him, to be able to attain this position,” he added. “I can speak on getting my doctorate: as much as we want to go around and rush things, everything happens in its due season, when we’re prepared for it. And it helps us springboard to that next step.”
Snee, the son-in-law of former Giants head coach Tom Coughlin, was hired in 2022 by Boston College, his alma mater, as a football analyst concentrating on player personnel and scouting. So he has been working in football to prepare for this step back into the NFL.
He previously worked for the Jacksonville Jaguars as a scout and coaching assistant in 2019, as well, when Coughlin was the Jags’ executive vice president.
“During my 10 years playing in the NFL, I took a lot of pride in how hard I prepared and the amount of information I was able to obtain through the film I consumed,” Snee said in 2019 when the Jaguars hired him. “Watching film and evaluating collegiate linemen are two very different tasks, but I am going to work hard, keep my head down and learn from my peers.”
MORE THAN FOOTBALL
As McKenzie intimated, Snee isn’t the only two-time Super Bowl winning Giants offensive lineman with big news.
Last Friday at 10:30 a.m., McKenzie orally defended his dissertation at Kean University to officially earn his Ph.D., which gives him the ability to teach future counselors and professionals who aim to advocate for and help those in need.
McKenzie was emotional just speaking about it on Tuesday.
“It was one of the greatest days of my life, probably up until that moment I would say more significant than a Super Bowl,” he said.
Why? Because this was a “monumental” accomplishment for McKenzie, to take “a 180-degree turn” from his previous life, “compete” in education and accomplish something his late parents also saw in him.
“I was emotional because this was something my parents knew of me prior to their passing,” McKenzie said. “To recognize the completion of something to this magnitude — and it was one of the first things I accomplished in my life that my parents didn’t witness. So it was an emotionally charged moment.”
McKenzie said he has always wanted to make certain that “what I’ve done, I always improve on.”
“I don’t want the last thing I’ve done to be the best thing I’ve done,” he said. “In service of the community, I can’t think of something more worthy than assisting with mental health and those in crisis.”
McKenzie said it’s important to remember these former NFL standouts are not just football players.
“We are smart, motivated people who can accomplish greatness,” he said.
ANOTHER QB IN THE FOLD
In minor roster news, the Giants claimed quarterback Nathan Rourke off waivers from the New England Patriots. Rourke, 25, spent time with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Patriots last season but hasn’t played in an NFL game yet. He played two seasons with the Canadian Football League’s B.C. Lions in 2021-22. He completed 78.7% of his passes in 2022 for 3,349 yards, 25 touchdown passes and 10 interceptions.
Rourke joins a QB room that also includes Daniel Jones, Drew Lock and Tommy DeVito. Jones is rehabbing from a torn right ACL. Jones is aiming to be on the field for training camp in July, but Rourke’s addition may be useful for the Giants to operate offensively during the spring OTA and minicamp program. He also presumably presents competition for DeVito as the third-stringer.
