Dave Gettleman is trying to get his message through again, this time to an audience of one -- me -- over a bowl of cream of tomato basil soup in the Giants cafeteria.

He had attempted to hammer it home a few minutes earlier, beginning his pre-NFL Draft press conference by reading from a USA Today article. It was about a pair of high-profile college basketball coaches, Mike Krzyzewski and John Calipari, who learned this past season that assembling the best talent doesn’t always make the best teams. He even quoted Lou Lamoriello, the Hall of Fame hockey general manager, to drive home the point before opening the floor for questions.

“Players win games. Teams win championships.”

And then, over the next 30 minutes, he fielded more than a dozen questions about drafting a star quarterback. His message, it seemed, had fallen flat. Based on the reaction to his controversial roster moves this winter -- including, he knows, by the columnist sitting across from him and that bowl of soup -- he should be getting used to that reaction.

“I think some people are still missing it,” the Giants general manager told NJ Advance Media in a wide-ranging 30-minute interview. "Football is the ultimate team game. If all 11 guys aren’t doing the right thing, you’re not going to be successful.

“There’s more to it than just collecting talent. There is a cultural thing to it that’s critical. I have not been on a team that’s gone to a Super Bowl that’s had a culture problem.”

Did he have one with the Giants?

“Not anymore,” he said with a satisfied smile.

I started this interview with a simple premise: That Gettleman is the most interesting man in the NFL, a statement that led to a big laugh and a quick retort. “That shows you how boring the NFL is!” But even he can’t deny that he stands out. In an era when most general managers are tight-lipped, analytic-dependent and colorless, he is a brash, go-with-his-gut, unapologetic throwback.

The reviews of his first 16 months as GM in East Rutherford have not been kind. Prominent NFL reporter Peter King called the 68-year-old a “personnel dinosaur” in October, and ESPN analyst Bill Barnwell described Gettleman’s moves since taking over the team as “scarcely believable.”

Gettleman is the man who traded star receiver Odell Beckham Jr. just months after signing him to a massive contract, who passed up a quarterback with the No. 2 overall pick to take a great player (Saquon Barkley) at a position (running back) that few value that highly, who refused to use the franchise tag on safety Landon Collins despite his status as a locker room leader and a defense already bereft of playmakers.

To be clear: The Giants went 5-11 last season, so no one on that roster should be safe. But the overall body of work heading into next week’s draft is puzzling, to put it mildly. The Giants are a rebuilding team --- with a 38-year-old quarterback -- that just added several big-salary veterans to their roster. They look, to an outsider, like a team pulling itself in two different directions.

Gettleman, faced with that criticism, doesn’t flinch.

“What I find interesting, there are people reporting and making judgments on what I do and how I do my job who don’t know the game, who have never been involved with a team, and have just been on the outside looking in,” Gettleman said. “That’s not your fault, by the way. It’s just the way it is. But the problem is, to me, is when a reporter makes a judgment and doesn’t have all the information. That’s a thing I just shake my head at.”

Gettleman believes, and believes strongly, that his way is the right way. He rattles off the names of the men who have influenced him through his long career as a football executive -- Bill Polian and Ernie Accorsi up close, Bill Parcells and Bill Walsh from afar -- and issues a reminder with his resume that he isn’t some guy the Giants pulled off the street.

“I’ve been to seven Super Bowls,” he said. “I feel very strongly that I know what it should look like, what it should smell like, what it should taste like. And, so, you can look at me and say, well, I either know what I’m doing or I’m a big fat rabbit’s foot. Neither one’s bad, right? I like my resume so far.”

“You have to have a philosophy, and you have to be intentional with every single move. And you can’t panic. I’ve told [Giants owner and CEO] John Mara, ‘We’re going to fix this. We’re going to put a team out there that everyone is going to be proud of.’”

But will his old-school philosophies work in this pass-happy NFL? Gettleman pounds the table several times as he gives his answer.

“Let me say this, okay?" he said. “There are three truths. Football evolves. The game evolves. The style of play evolves. But there are three truths that have not changed and will not change. Okay? You have to run the ball. You have to stop the run. And you have to rush the passer.”

To drive home that point, Gettleman dips into recent NFL history. The Patriots won the Super Bowl this winter not because of Tom Brady’s greatness, he points out, but because Patriots coach Bill Belichick drew up a game plan to run the ball down the Rams’ throats.

“Talk about -- you mean Belichick’s not a dinosaur? (Look at) the Super Bowl,” Gettleman said. "Why isn’t he a dinosaur? Understand what I’m saying? Those are the three truths.”

This week, despite all the changes he’s made already, could shape his legacy. Gettleman has 12 picks to work with in the NFL Draft, including Nos. 6 and 17 in the first round. He called this a “really good draft,” and he’ll need three really good days using those picks to continue building a roster that is woefully short of depth.

Accorsi, a friend he still leans on for advice, solidified his place in Giants history in 2004 when he made the draft-day trade to acquire Eli Manning. Gettleman, who inherited quarterback Cam Newton in Carolina, has never had to pick a franchise quarterback.

“Listen, the two biggest decisions a GM has to make are the quarterback and the head coach, and if you hit on both, you’re riding the gravy train. Ernie hit on both,” Gettleman said. “In Carolina, I didn’t have to do either. Here, it’s completely different.”

Here, he hired Pat Shurmur as head coach while defiantly sticking with Manning in the face of mounting criticism -- even his comment on Thursday that Manning proved he had “plenty left” led to snickers on social media.

He has a chance to get the last laugh, of course. If he finds the next franchise quarterback this week, then his decision to take Barkley last spring will look like a stroke of genius. If the Giants accomplish something without Beckham that they never did with him -- win a playoff game -- Gettleman will have the opportunity to spike the football on his doubters.

“That’s not me,” he said when asked if he’d enjoy that. “I don’t want anyone talking about me. In my dream world, I want everybody talking about the New York football Giants, and Pat Shurmur and Eli Manning and Saquon Barkley. That’s who I want people talking about. They don’t need to be talking about me, boring old me.”

With that, the most interesting man in the NFL brought his soup bowl to the cafeteria dishwashing station and went back to work.

Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevePoliti. Find NJ.com on Facebook.