Jeremiah Sirles played 12 games on Brian Daboll’s Bills offensive line in 2018, starting five times, and played center with Josh Allen and the Buffalo ones in the spring of 2019 under new Bills O-line coach Bobby Johnson.
Now here Sirles was this March, in 2023, listening to Johnson tell him how Sirles’ client, Minnesota center John Michael Schmitz, had “aced” the Giants’ protection schemes over dinner the night before the Gophers’ pro day.
“Bobby told me the next day, ‘I eventually had to throw tackle calls at him to try to get him to miss something,’” Sirles, an agent with One West Sports Group, told the Daily News on the phone Monday. “Bobby basically installed how they do all their protections, and its stuff that John Michael and I had been installing for two months.
“He threw a bunch at him where he couldn’t take notes because they were at a restaurant,” Sirles added. “So it was ‘Here are our installs, look at it, install it, let’s eat our dinner and chat, and then here’s your test.’ And he aced it besides one thing.”
Johnson admitted afterwards that the tackle call never would be Schmitz’s responsibility in a game but joked: “I just had to get him with something.”
No amount of pressure is too much to put on a player the Giants could draft on Thursday night at No. 25 overall to be their starting center for the next decade, though, agreed? Especially to run an offense that GM Joe Schoen called “very complicated” less than a week ago, protecting a quarterback who just re-signed for $160 million.
“I think that’s where Bobby and Daboll are going, ‘If we take a guy at 25, he has to be able to start for us right away, not just physically but mentally,” Sirles said. “That’s where I can see JMS having a little bit of that perfect transition and fit where he’s not behind the eight ball already.”
Thursday’s first round could go a lot of different ways. The Giants could end up with a corner or a playmaker instead, depending on how the board falls. There are other teams who are fond of Schmitz, 24, especially the Seattle Seahawks, who hold picks at Nos. 20 and 37 overall.
It shouldn’t be overlooked how valuable the center position is philosophically to Schoen, Daboll and this program, however, and what that could mean for their selection after letting Jon Feliciano (49ers) and Nick Gates (Washington) leave in free agency.
Schoen’s mentor, Bills GM Brandon Beane, prioritized the center position when Schoen was assistant GM in Buffalo.
Beane extended center Eric Wood when he took over as GM in 2017. Then when Wood retired due to injury, forcing the Bills to patchwork the position in Allen’s 2018 rookie season, Beane signed Chiefs free agent Mitch Morse to a four-year, $44.5 million contract in spring 2019.
“It’s very important to have a good center, not only one that can physically play but also a very good communicator,” Beane told reporters in 2019. “You have to adjust, and a good center takes a little bit of pressure off the quarterback with all the twists and stunts, guys disguising coming up pre-snap.
“I was in Carolina for a good while, and we had Ryan Kalil, and he took a lot of pressure off of Cam Newton,” Beane continued. “And you go back to the first guy I extended here, Eric Wood … so I think you can see my philosophy … I do think [that] is an important position.”
Guess who else thinks the center position is critical? Schoen’s friend and confidant, Hall-of-Famer and two-time Giants Super Bowl champion coach Bill Parcells.
“Centers are hard to find,” Parcells, who shelled out big money for future Hall of Fame center Kevin Mawae with the Jets, told The Athletic in 2019. “You can’t just dial 1-800 and find one of those. If you take a look around, that’s a position that’s not easy to find. That can hold you hostage if you need one of those. When you have a chance to get one of those, you get one.”
Granted, both Beane and Parcells signed veterans to fix their pivot problem. It’s rare that a rookie can master an offense immediately, let alone be the line’s leader as its greenest piece.
But that is what makes Sirles’ presence and perspective on this situation so interesting: He knows what it takes to be the center on Johnson’s line and Daboll’s offense.
He has seen what the nearly 6-4, 309-pound Schmitz can do physically while being trained by former NFL O-lineman Alex Boone at their Minneapolis-based offensive line gym, BRUTE. And Sirles has seen Schmitz’s impressive mental capacity while installing NFL concepts to prepare him for the pros, many of which come straight from what Sirles ran under Daboll.
“The majority of the concepts that I teach are from the Vikings and the Bills, because those are the two offenses I understood the best,” Sirles said. “So a lot of the conceptual football from the run game, to how protections are broken down, all of that is based off of those protections that I ran, especially under Daboll.”
Sirles said what makes Daboll’s “complicated and intricate” system is all in “code words,” where “one word means formation, play call, protection, route concept, the whole bit. So he needs a guy that’s smart enough to learn the offense and then translate it over to code words.”
He also said Daboll’s desire to keep the defense on its heels can lead to quick changes, like in and out of his “NASCAR” up-tempo package to a regular huddle tempo, or to the use of a play at the 50-yard line that was practiced that week in the red zone. It all requires a complete and rapid translation of some interesting calls.
“Daboll likes to flip-flop back and forth between those randomly throughout the game,” Sirles said. “It could be the third series of the game right at the beginning of the second quarter, and you get your first first down, and all of a sudden you’re getting back in the huddle and Josh Allen is running up there going “Hey! James Harden! James Harden!” And it’s immediately flipped over to the NASCAR system … Once it’s installed, it’s always live. So a ton is on your shoulders as a center.”
Granted, quarterback Daniel Jones still is the central nervous system who can overrule calls and take charge. In Daboll’s offense, though, the marriage of the center and QB is critical.
If there was an empty protection in Buffalo’s NASCAR up-tempo package, for example, “Josh [was] busy communicating to the receivers because we’re going fast. So he [had] to trust that his center is going to get his protection right. I have to point out the mike, point out the will, let the back know where we’re going, and tell the offensive line.”
Of course, as Schmitz’s agent, Sirles is going to say his client can be the Giants’ solution. His insight is unique, however, because he knows what Johnson expects of this position. And frankly, he wouldn’t peg Schmitz as a good fit if he didn’t think he could handle it.
“Bobby wants guys that have personality, but he expects a lot out of his centers to command the room,” Sirles said. “He wants the players to run their room. Bobby’s there to coach. He’s not there to be a babysitter of the room. If you mess up in the room, it’s the other people around you’s job to get that right. And I think Bobby’s looking for that as a center. And if you look at John Michael’s track record at Minnesota, he’s been the guy for what felt like eight years.”
Schmitz, a redshirt who took advantage of a sixth year with the NCAA’s COVID-19 exception, made 35 starts at Minnesota and was named a 2022 First-Team All-American. He showed he could lead veterans and underclassmen alike.
Schoen played it coy at last week’s pre-draft press conference when asked about the centers in this draft, citing the returns and signings of veterans such as guard/center Ben Bredeson and center J.C. Hassenauer as options.
“I think there’s some depth in the draft, but I don’t think we have to [draft one],” he said. “Talking with the coaching staff and the personnel staff, there’s people in-house [who] are available candidates for that. It will be [a] good competition.”
But as Sirles said, having an “elite” center is a different level of security for a growing offense with a franchise quarterback. And Schmitz can be that in New York.
“John Michael’s going to be elite,” he said. “It’s not going to be right away, because no one is as a rookie. But he’s going to work himself to be that elite center where you don’t have to worry about that. Now you can say, let’s leave that position alone. Let’s leave the O-line to do their thing and focus on everything else.”
Wouldn’t that be something if the Giants could say that.
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