Tom Rock: John Harbaugh, Aaron Glenn face different challenges but the same goal of turning Giants, Jets into winners

There was a point right in the middle of a steamy camp workout one afternoon in New Jersey last month when new Giants coach John Harbaugh blew his whistle and sent the entire team to one corner of the field.

It wasn’t exactly clear what was happening as the players and coaches milled about in a very tight space between the end zone and the temporary barrier that separated the football from the construction taking place on the facility.

Was this some kind of punishment? A pep talk?

There was no way a notoriously arduous Harbaugh training session would end early, right?

Then a handful of players trotted back out onto the grass. Then another did, settling in a different area. Another and another soon followed, each staking out its territory by position groups.

Eventually they began coming together in larger groups, the offense on one side and defense on the other, until finally they were back to actually snapping a football against each other.

The Giants were practicing. It wasn’t anything from their playbooks or their game plans, though. They were practicing how Harbaugh wanted them to warm up for the preseason opener that was going to take place in a few days, not to mention every ensuing game.

When people say no detail is overlooked by Harbaugh, these are the things they are talking about. The timing and the order of everything from route-running to meeting times to jogging from the locker room and through the tunnel is thought out and drilled.

The Giants had three preseason games and they kicked off at three different times: 1 p.m., 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. You think it’s a coincidence that those closely mimic the three different times the Giants’ regular-season games will begin?

It was all about getting the players prepared for what those days will feel like before they ever get to them.

“Harbs definitively has a mode of operation,” said new NBC studio analyst Mike Tomlin who, for the better part of the last two decades, was a division opponent of Harbaugh's as the Steelers' coach. “He has a definitive style about how he engineers victory. I think that’s a major component of winning and winning consistently.”

Now that mode, that style, belongs to the Giants.

It’s a players’ game. Giants and Jets fans will be wearing their new Arvell Reese and David Bailey jerseys this fall, their recent Jaxson Dart and Garrett Wilson ones, and of course their throwback Odell Beckham Jr. and Geno Smith ones too (if they held on to them long enough).

Whether or not either of the two teams in town can climb out of its long funk will be determined on the field by those athletes, but the story on the eve of this 2026 season feels as if it hinges on the two men wearing the headsets on the sidelines.

One, Aaron Glenn, needs to prove he is up to the challenges of leading his team. The other, Harbaugh, needs to find out if his team is up to the challenge of him.

“He's a stickler for the details,” receiver Darius Slayton, the longest continuously tenured Giant until his release earlier this week said of what he learned about Harbaugh at the close of training camp. “He has an appetite for excellence and that's what he expects out of everybody, coaches and players alike. I think that's definitely something that he's enforced from the first day he's been here.”

That’s a nicer way of phrasing what linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux’s first impression of Harbaugh was in the spring when he said: “He’s a maniac. He’s obsessed. I love it.”

Harbaugh laughs at that description . . . but he does not deny it. To him, this is just the way to win. It’s about holding everyone to a standard.

“You’ve got to be willing to take the risk to let somebody know what's required, and if they're not quite there, they're not quite up to standard in terms of what that's going to take, then you should let them know, you should help them,” he said. “You should let them know they’ve got lettuce in their teeth so they can get it out of there. Let's make it better, right?”

Will it work? Can it turn the Giants, a franchise that has been tripping over itself for the better part of a decade and a half now, into a title contender?

It certainly makes them more interesting than the crosstown Jets, yet with no real guarantee that they’ll be much better.

The Jets feel like the opposite of the Giants. Instead of the veteran coach, they have a second-year one. Instead of the second-year quarterback, they have the veteran one.

And instead of plunging headlong into their immediate future, the Jets feel very much like a team biding its time. They have a decent nucleus, a very strong offensive line and some dynamic weapons. But the Jets haven’t built a roster so much as a nest, one they hope will become the home to a young chick of a quarterback in April who eventually will learn to fly . . .  and take the franchise soaring with him.

Glenn seems much more relaxed and confident this year than he did as a rookie. Perhaps that is because he has returned to his element as the chief caller of the defense and he’ll have more direct control over the product on the field.

Still, if the Jets are an organization already looking toward 2027, they’ll have to decide if Glenn is the right person to take them there.

Several times this summer, Glenn wrapped up a practice by telling reporters he “liked” what he was seeing from the team before adding: “But I want to love it.”

Jets ownership wants to love him, too. Neither may get to that point before time runs out.

There will be other enticing options for the Jets, including perhaps that rookie NBC analyst quoted earlier. If the Jets are all-in on a rookie quarterback next season, it probably would make sense to start over with a fresh coach and a new vision, too.

The Giants and Jets won’t face each other this season, but if the Giants are successful under their new high-ticket established coach, it could prompt the Jets into trying to land one of their own.

Harbaugh, it should be noted, hasn’t won or even been to a Super Bowl since a year after the Giants went to and won their last one. He has been a perennial playoff coach with the Ravens since then, though.

That’s certainly his plan here now, too. But just as much as he wants to control the way the team takes the field, he’ll be judged by how they leave it after each game.

“I think the fix there is going to be quicker than some outsiders might realize,” Tomlin said of the Giants. “I’m not putting them in the Super Bowl, but I certainly expect those guys to be competitive almost instantly . . .  I’m not going to be shocked when they show up in that stadium and they play with a really high floor. They’re solid in all areas. They don’t beat themselves. They won’t be highly penalized, et cetera, et cetera. I just have that level of feeling about Harbs and what he’s capable of delivering.”

This is probably the most talented overall roster the Giants have had since their Super Bowl-winning days. Consider this: On their most recent playoff team in 2022, Isaiah Hodgins was a key receiver for them. This year, Hodgins was with the Giants in camp but didn’t make the team. Not even the practice squad.

They have Dart, whom they think they can channel into a winner. They have a game-changing wide receiver in Malik Nabers, assuming he is fully healthy. Their defense is promising with the third and fifth overall picks in the last two drafts — Abdul Carter and Arvel Reese — potentially lined up side by side. But all of those stars in the making come with caveats and questions about reaching their potential.

At least now they have a coach who doesn’t. They have a philosophy and an identity that starts at the top.

On Sunday night they’ll run through the tunnel at MetLife Stadium and warm up for real to face the Cowboys and their new future.

That part, at the very least, should go just the way they practiced it.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.