Hard to believe, but just two weeks today as we speak, Giants rookies will be on the field at training camp with the first full team practice scheduled for the following week. And that seems to be as good a time as any to empty the GBN Giants Report mailbag. Again, as noted previously we tend to get a lot of similar queries and rather than try and respond to each one here’s a collective response to the main themes we get.
Not surprisingly, the main thing on people’s mind these days with the season looming is how do we think the Giants will do this fall. The simple answer is that we have no idea; its why they play games. We are on the record, though, suggesting that the Giants may be better than their 4-13 record in 2021. No question they were a dumpster fire the final 6 weeks of the season with virtual street free agents Mike Glennon and Jake Fromm trying to fill in for an injured Daniel Jones. But, in the 21 games prior to Jones’ injury they had been 10-11, which for the mathematically challenged is pretty close to .500. Bottom line is that given a much easier schedule this fall, along with what looks like a strengthened overall roster, and everything else being equal, we believe this team has the potential to win 9-10 games with Jones at QB.
Of course, that leads to the next question which is would 9-10 wins be enough to have the Giants looking to extend Jones who becomes a free agent at the end of the year. Again, the simple answer is who knows. Right now the Giants themselves seem prepared to see how the season plays out and make a make decision once they’ve seen how Jones plays in a reasonably functional offense with a few legit weapons to work. Certainly makes sense to us.
And again we fully recognize that whether Jones ultimately morphs into a top 10 QB is a bit of a longshot. But it happens. In his third season in 2003, for example, Drew Brees completed less than 60% of his passes and had more picks (15) than TD passes (11) as the Chargers went 2-9 (and ironically had them picking one Eli Manning with the first pick overall in the 2004 draft – and the rest is history) before exploding as a top passer the next year. Of course, Brees was an outlier, but in fact just about every great player in the NFL is something of an outlier. Someone asked us once when we were prepared to give up on a player. Our answer: when the Giants release him!
In the same vein, another pretty regular query these days goes along the lines of ‘Do we see any way in which RB Saquon Barkley gets a contract extension?’ Again, only time will tell, but it would be hard to imagine any scenario where Saquon gets extended, especially if he is used primarily this season as a straight-up RB. However, if the Giants end up using more of a receiver this fall in the mold of a Deebo Samuel type slash player, it is not inconceivable that they would franchise him for a season or two if he put up big numbers.
We have also had a number of queries along the lines of ‘if the Giants only had the 5th pick at this year’s draft would they have taken Kayvon Thibodeaux or Evan Neal?’ It also appears that most folks asking the question believed that it would have been Neal. It’s possible. In the end, we may never know for sure, but the Giants did leave one very subtle clue as what they would have done had that in fact been their choice. Indeed, when given the actual choice between the two they took Thibodeaux. And yes, there was the fact that they knew that one of Neal or Ickey Ekwonu would be there at #7, but they could have lost out on Thibodeaux entirely if Carolina had traded down. Again, we’ll never know for sure, but it is our understanding based on info from our sources that Thibo was the Giants’ top choice from the get-go.
In fact, as far as we are concerned the more interesting question might have been what the Giants would have done at #7 if either of corners Sauce Gardner or Derek Stingley had been available. The other interesting question we’d have is whether the Giants gave any thought at all to taking a WR at #7. Remember Drake London, the top-rated receiver went one pick later to Atlanta. We think in the end the Giants would have stuck with Neal in that scenario, but it would be interesting to know what their thinking was at the time.
We’d also love to know what their thinking was at the top of the second round. As the clock was ticking down on the start of the second day’s picks we had two players on ‘our’ short list for the Giants who were picking third in the second round. The two were DE Logan Hall and WR Christian Watson, who were in fact the first two players selected in the second round. Don’t know what the Giants were thinking at the time, but it would be interesting to know if Watson was a target or whether Wan’dale Robinson, who the Giants ultimately chose after a couple of trade down was the target all along.
We have also had a number of questions along the lines of ‘Is the revamped offensive line the key to the upcoming season?’ The simple answer is ‘No!’ It will certainly be nice to give Jones a better pocket to work out of, but ultimately the real key will be getting some big plays out of the skill position people on offense. In fact, one could probably make the case that getting a better pass rush will also ultimately have a bigger impact than an improved OL.
We had a couple of people ask who our ‘under-the-radar’ veteran would be for this year. In fact, the guy who really jumps out at us re a question like that at is WR Darius Slayton. Of course, there’s no guarantee he even makes the team, but if he does he’s the one guy who, if healthy, could give the Giants a legit deep threat. They have the underneath stuff covered with Saquon, Robinson and Kadarius Toney, and Kenny Golladay is a big intermediate target, but having Slayton play close to what he did earlier in his career would give the Giants that third-level threat that if nothing else would stretch defenses.
That said, we would still put a legit #1 receiver with the ability to stretch defenses as the Giants top need looking ahead to the 2023 draft, at least if you’re asking the question ‘what’s their biggest need to get to a championship level?’ Of course, that assumes that they have found a way (and a reason) to extend Jones, otherwise all bets are off when it comes to next year’s draft. And if what they did in Buffalo is any guide, Schoen and company will also still be looking to upgrade the pass rush even with the addition of Thibodeaux in this year’s opening round, while CB appears to be the most problematic position heading into the season.
