THE MODERATOR: We have Matt Nagy available for questions.
Q. I'm sure when you're looking at jobs and things and John calls you, and you think, okay, Giants, I would imagine maybe the fist thing is, okay, who is the quarterback? Who am I going to work with here? When you asked that question and you started digging into Jaxson Dart, what did you see, and what do you think? Then seeing him today, how did that feel?
MATT NAGY: Yeah, well, to start off, I was really excited when Coach Harbs gave me the phone call. We've had a prior relationship years ago.
Obviously him being in the Andy Reid tree from back in Philadelphia, there's a connection there, and I've had a ton of respect for him as a person and as a coach, the success he's had. So when he called initially, it was just great to talk to him. Then you start getting into the football side of it and what we have going on here.
I was able to watch a decent amount of Jaxson last year when I was in Kansas City. We try to take as little time as possible in Kansas City watching the quarterback position, but every year I will watch just to kind of see the top guys that are there.
I remember coming away really impressed with Jaxson and his accuracy. I didn't know -- back then a year ago or two years ago, I didn't know how tough he was and how good of a runner he was. He was a really good, sneaky good runner, tough, physical, played the quarterback position well, accurate. You could see he was a competitor.
I remember then at the combine us not really being in the quarterback market, watching him, just kind of observing how he handled himself in that group of guys at the combine. You could see this moxie that he had, and he had this "it" factor.
When I got here to New York and got to meet him and started talking to him, you could tell right away that everything was true. This kid is different that way. So my initial conversation with Coach Harbs was, hey, excited, really looking forward to being able to help out in many ways and building that relationship and that trust. I know he had a great year last year, but we want to make it even better and continue to have him grow, and I want to be there to help him.
Q. I'm curious, the coaching staff that Coach Harbaugh put together has you at the top of the offensive chart, but there are so many guys on that below you or working with you who have called plays, who have been head coaches, who have been coordinators. How does that dynamic work as you put this offense together? What is that like?
MATT NAGY: Well, to tell you the truth, it's actually been one of the most -- not surprising, but it's really been invigorating for me. To your question, you have all these guys that have all this experience and backgrounds of coordinators, head coaches. There's a lot. I mean, there's a lot of guys.
Going into this, you can look at it different ways. I think if you look at it one way you could say, well, my title is offensive coordinator, and it's my job to do everything. That's not true. You know, we have so many -- Coach Harbs did such a great job at bringing in guys with a ton of experience, and I'd be foolish to not use that. They've been amazing.
It's been so much fun putting this offense together, our offense here. I know a lot of different coaches with a lot of different backgrounds from different teams, a lot of different coaches with OC experience, head coaching experience.
You look at a guy like -- you look at Brian Callahan. Here's a former head coach that's now a quarterback coach and passing game coordinator. I did that in 2022 after I got fired in Chicago. I went back to Kansas City in the same role.
In that interview process with Calli, I wanted him to understand and know, it's not easy doing what you're doing. I have a ton of respect for what you are doing, and I'm going to be there. We're going to team up together to tackle this thing together and make it ours.
You get a guy like Greg Roman, who has been an offensive coordinator in our division in Kansas City last year, and here he is coming in and been doing this a long time. That's awesome, the value that he brings.
A guy like Mike Bloomgren has been a head coach at Rice. Willie Taggart has been a head coach at four or five different colleges. The experience goes on and on and on. You've got Tim Kelly, who was an offensive coordinator.
For me it's so important for all of us -- and we talked about it -- put the egos aside. Let's make this ours. Let's not worry about whose idea it is. Let's make it our idea, and let's run with it. Let's make it make sense to the guys, and let's go out there and figure out as we go through OTAs and into training camp what we're going to look like.
So I can't thank those guys enough, and it starts at the top with Coach Harbaugh. I've just been really, really fortunate and lucky, because it's a beautiful staff.
Q. What do you think of your running back position? Obviously there's been kind of a -- Cam Skattebo is a kind of a character. Tyrone Tracy has been here, and then you've been connected to Jeremiyah Love quite a bit in the draft. What do you think of the two running backs you have, and I guess the running back position overall, because there's so many different takes on how valuable the running back is in today's draft and today's NFL?
MATT NAGY: Yeah, the running back room, our room, I'm excited about the guys that are there. There's others too within that room that we have. There are some that I don't know much about, and I'm excited to see who these guys are and what they bring.
You brought up specifically with Cam and Tracy, two guys that have experience, two guys that are very hungry. They're still young. So how do they fit in what we do is to be determined. Obviously Scat coming off the injury.
You know, one of the things we talked about in our meeting today was for everybody in this room, and specifically on offense for us, was y'all got a clean slate. So there's going to be some guys in different positions that might have had different experiences or different paths, but it's a clean slate, and it's on them and us to see where we're at.
That running back room is a big part of the offense. You look at what we want to try to do and what we want to get to. That's going to be a big part of it. Again, with the running backs in the draft, there's quite a bit of good guys there. You brought up Love and what a great talent he is. To be determined how that all plays out, but we're excited about who we have right now and who we know we have.
Q. Even though you're on the other side of the ball, I'm not going to spare you from the topic of the day. Last year you had to game plan against the Giants with Dexter Lawrence in the middle. What is it like as an offensive coach going against him when he's in the center of the opposing defense?
MATT NAGY: Yeah, he's a beast. Not to mention the other three or four guys on that line. I remember all the defensive fronts that we saw and went against last year that, without a doubt, this being the top one.
When I came here to New York, I was super excited about, but also knowing now that we're going to be seeing it every single day in practice and in training camp. It will only make us better.
Dexter is a hell of a player. He's been doing it a while, and a lot of respect for him. So I just know that when we played him last year, we had to know where he was on every play.
Q. Matt, John said he asked everybody to sort of introduce themselves today and tell them their identity and their purpose. What's your identity and purpose, and what do you want this offense's identity and purpose to be?
MATT NAGY: Yeah, well, for me my purpose, and a lot of us brought this up when we were in there, it's your family and it's these teammates. I'm a father of four boys. I have a beautiful wife. We've been married a long time. It starts there.
Then it connects here to the players and the team. This is new family for me, which is awesome, and it's fun. You know, being able to have that is great. Whether it's the purpose, identity, to me it's all about impact. You want to change people in the right way. You want to connect people. You want to impact.
I'm about doing everything we can possibly do to win because, let's face it, that's why we're all here. We need to win. We want to win, and how are we going to get there, so being able to win and understand what that plan is. But competitive, truth and love, and find every way to win is kind of what we all talked about. So it was pretty cool.
Q. I guess conceptually what are you looking for out of a rookie quarterback going into his second year, and I guess what do you want to see from Jaxson as he kind of makes that leap this offseason and heading into the spring?
MATT NAGY: Sure. Well, it's going to start off by building off the confidence he has from last year. He was able to really put together a good year as a rookie. You want to grow from that. So it's our job as coaches to make sure we see what he did well, but then we're also going to make sure we're staying locked in on him improving on certain areas.
So we see things on tape as we go through it, but now we got to get out here and as we build this offense, give him places and areas to grow. The one thing I love about Jaxson is Jaxson wants to be the best. He really does. When you have that, that's half the battle. He's a connector himself. Just seeing and hearing from other coaches how much he's connected with his teammates last year, that's awesome.
He wants to be the best. He wants to be coached hard, have that discipline, and work on his footwork, his timing, and his connection with teammates. We're going to do that.
I think for him it's not going to all come in one practice. It's going to take some time, but it's our job as coaches to be able to show him these clips and get to training camp and get to the games and then win and be able to keep finding areas where he's doing things well, but that he can also grow.
Q. Kind of going back to Jaxson, you mentioned him wanting to be the best. You've been around a quarterback that a lot of people think is one of the best right now in Mahomes. How do you go about imparting some of the lessons that Mahomes showed and also knowing, hey, Dart is his own guy, but how do you try to incorporate this, what worked for him just mentally and kind of helping fuse that into Dart, if you will?
MATT NAGY: No doubt. The thing I would say with that conversation that I've had with Jaxson is just what you said. I think it's a great point. He's Jaxson Dart. He's not Patrick Mahomes.
I was able to be fortunate enough to be around Patrick for many years, and I saw Patrick as a rookie, and I got to see him when I came back from Chicago four years in. I got to see four more years of him as a vet.
But we can use that for more, like, routines and maybe how we did things, but the one thing that I know -- first of all, I know how much respect that Jaxson has for Patrick. We've talked a little bit about the process and what he's been through, but we've also made it clear, you have to be Jaxson Dart. He's going to do that.
So it's our job to surround him and insulate him, give him direction, but he has to be able it on tell us, like, how he likes it, why he likes it, and so forth. We're going to be really intentional on how we do that. You look at Brian Callahan. He's been around a lot of great quarterbacks too, and he's in a room with them now. He's seen Peyton Manning to Matthew Stafford to Joe Burrow. That's valuable. That's really valuable.
Also, too, I don't want to be remiss on Jameis Winston. Just today being with him and having a couple of off-the-field, private conversation with him just to learn who he is really, really impressed with him too. It's a healthy quarterback room.
It's just really looking forward to what that recipe looks like to help build those guys.
Q. Sometimes you hear coaches talk all the time about players stepping out of their comfort zone, trying to pull them out. That when the guys get comfortable, it's hard to take them out of that. I'm wondering from your perspective, there are probably a lot of coaches in the league who look at your situation the last couple of years. You know, you have a Hall of Fame coach there and the position you were in, you are coaching the best quarterback in the league. What about you and what you want for this next step allowed you to get out of that comfort zone and take the opportunity here that you have now?
MATT NAGY: I really felt like, you know, I started my coaching career with Coach Reid in Philadelphia in 2010 to 2012. Then he brought me in as a quarterback coach and turned into a coordinator, nonplay caller in Kansas City. Took that to Chicago and back to Kansas City.
Throughout that time, I've been with Coach a long time. I wouldn't be here today without Coach Reed. He's been my biggest mentor and has taught me so much.
At the same point in time, I feel like after Chicago I had four years in Kansas City, four great years in Kansas City, learned a lot, but it was also you get to a point where I think it's just like, okay, maybe it's time for movement, maybe it's time for me.
I've never been an offensive coordinator, play caller. Never. I've either been a nonplay caller, OC or been a head coach, play caller; but I've never been just an offensive coordinator, play caller. That to me was really exciting.
So now coming here to New York with this staff the last several months, what we're doing is this isn't a pick up and place down Kansas City or a pick up and place down Baltimore. We're taking all these different backgrounds that we have, and we're going to make it ours. It's going to be the New York Giants and how we do things.
That's going to take some time, but for me I'm excited about that opportunity. It's really a lucky opportunity. I'm fortunate. Then I also get to see, too, how Coach Harbaugh does things as a leader at the forefront as the head coach. There's a lot of benefits to it.
I really appreciate Coach Reid and the rest of the Chiefs, but this is a positive time for me.
Q. I kind of just wanted to build on that for a second, because you said it's our offense. It's not going to be the same as Kansas City or Baltimore. It's going to be different. I'm curious, when you envision what it's going to look like, and obviously probably what you envision now might end up looking different by the time we get there, but what do you see when you envision it at this point?
MATT NAGY: Yeah, it's going to be physical, I can tell you that. Now, there are different ways when we say physical. I think if you look at any team that Coach Harbaugh has always had on both sides, all three phases, the word "physical" is the first thing you think of. So it's going to start there. That's not a hidden fact.
But from there now we've got to work around our players' strengths, and we've got to say, okay, in the run game, in pass pro, in the pass game these buckets that we form of all three phases, where do we want to start? Well, we got to start with these guys understanding how we do things, and then once we get to OTAs and into training camp, it will kind of start to get personalized.
What I see from that is a really great mix of different things. So I can't tell you right now exactly what it's going to look like. I can tell you, you know, this will be the first time that, again, that we're putting this together. To me as we're going through this as a staff, I can say it really hasn't been seen, which is a good thing, I think.
So what it is exactly, we have an idea big picture, but what it becomes through these players' strengths we'll have a direction. That's the exciting part.
I mean, I'll give you an example. There are some plays that we've done, and we might teach on the front end, but we might see that it just, for whatever reason, doesn't fit our players right now, and there are other plays that are better, so we're going to do those and work around our guys.
We're going to have some fun, but we're going to be really good at what we do, because we're going to be detailed and have that less-is-more concept.
Q. I wanted to ask you about the signing of Lucas Patrick yesterday, because I think he's the first offensive lineman you signed who wasn't on the team last year. I'm curious what you guys like about him, and how much do you view him as a potential starter at right guard at this point?
MATT NAGY: Yeah, well, a guy that has a lot of experience. He's been around. I think when you have that experience as a coach, it's nice to know that you get a guy that's been there, done that.
We'll go through this process. Once you get through the draft, you kind of see where you're at. You get to see where these other players are that we have. Competition is beautiful. We have a lot of places right now where there's going to be a lot of great competition.
So it's a great chance in OTAs to let these guys place them in and see where they fit best and a little bit of musical chairs for some, and others it may not be. I think it's great for us.
Got to meet and see him yesterday and talk a little bit about his experience, but he gives us valued experience that is always important to have.
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