Rookie Giants GM Joe Schoen drove up to 1925 Giants Drive on Thursday well aware that the eyes of a fan base and an ownership desperate to rise yet again from the latest rock bottom would be on him not long after the 2022 NFL Draft began.

Schoen was born nine months after The Fumble and two months before George Young began providing a history lesson on how to recover from true rock bottom.

True rock bottom is when a new general manager is summoned to end a Mara family feud and bring peace to warring factions who, just like the fan base, had endured 15 Years of Lousy Football And Had Had Enough.

Pete Rozelle, NFL commissioner in 1979, had helped broker a compromise between Wellington Mara and his nephew Tim Mara, and George Young was introduced at a Midtown steakhouse on Valentine’s Day, love at first sight.

Young had hired Ray Perkins to be his head coach, and on May 3, at the Waldorf Astoria, Young would make his first draft choice for the New York Football Giants.

A tanned Rozelle announced: “New York Giants first-round selection … quarterback Phil Simms, Morehead State.”

Phil who? From where? Rozelle smiled as the draftniks morphed into the boobirds who would flock to Simms for years until he broke through and wore them out and helped lead the Giants to two Super Bowl championships and Young and Bill Parcells to Canton.

Joe Montana would be Bill Walsh’s third-round pick later that afternoon, but Simms at the time was considered the better prospect, and there are two Lombardi trophies standing in the lobby glass case inside 1925 Giants Drive. Young’s second-rounder was wide receiver Earnest Gray, who started 69 games and had 243 receptions, 3,768 yards and 27 touchdowns for the Giants.

Ernie Accorsi succeeded Young following the 1997 season. “He set the bar so high,” Accorsi said.

His first draft was in 1998 at the Theater at Madison Square Garden, when Bill Polian and the Colts made Peyton Manning the first overall pick. Accorsi, with the 24th pick, selected safety Shaun Williams.

“I didn’t like my first draft, I didn’t like the choices that we had by the time we picked,” Accorsi said. “Things didn’t really break away in that draft.”

Williams started 60 games for Big Blue and recorded 13 interceptions with three seasons of more than 90 tackles. I recall writing right after the draft that guard Alan Faneca, taken at 26 by the Steelers, would have been a better choice. “As it turned out you were right, he’s a Hall of Famer,” Accorsi said.

Accorsi’s second-rounder was receiver Joe Jurevicius, who started 14 games and had 102 receptions, 1,442 yards and five TDs as a Giant.

Director of player personnel Jerry Reese, the third African-American GM in league history, succeeded Accorsi, who is revered today for delivering Eli Manning and a pair of Super Bowls to the Giants, on Jan. 16, 2007.

Young had hired Reese in December 1994, and Accorsi had mentored him.

“Ernie and George have two different styles,” Reese said when he was hired. “George was the kind of sit-and-wait and just stand pat with your hand, whatever you had in the draft. He would take what was there, and he thought that was the way to do it. Ernie’s style was a little bit different, and I took something from both styles. Ernie believes if you see a guy on the board and you want him, you go get him. If it’s time for you to pick and it looks like a guy that should be a third-round pick — hey, don’t mess around.”

Reese nailed his first draft at Radio City Music Hall on April 28. With the 20th pick, six picks after the Jets grabbed Darrelle Revis, Reese selected fellow cornerback Aaron Ross (11 INTs in 43 starts as a Giant). He saved his best for last following receiver Steve Smith in the second round, long snapper Zak DeOssie in the fourth round and tight end Kevin Boss in the fifth round — when he stole running back Ahmad Bradshaw in the seventh round.

Reese (Ereck Flowers, Eli Apple) was never that good again, and was succeeded by Dave Gettleman on Dec. 28, 2017. Gettleman, pooh poohing positional value in the 2018 NFL Draft at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, bypassed quarterbacks Sam Darnold, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen and Lamar Jackson to draft running back Saquon Barkley with the second overall pick. Gettleman was allowed to retire with his 19-46 record.

Which led to the hiring on Jan. 21 of Schoen, who showed up for the first round of Thursday night’s draft armed with the fifth and seventh picks as the hope diamond for a fan base and a franchise desperate to rise again from the latest rock bottom.