Giants post-draft buzz

Got a chance to chat with a guy who is pretty close to the Giants last evening and this was the gist of some of what he had to say.

Going into the draft the #1 guy on the Giants short list was Mahomes (more on that below). They were prepared to try and move up if Mahomes had come within range but they really didn’t expect to have a shot as there other teams with greater interest/needs.

Once Mahomes was off the board, Engram was pretty much the choice. And they liked him not so much because he represented an upgrade at TE, but because they felt he was one of the most dynamic playmakers in the game who is going to be a huge match up headache going forward. Now its up to Eli and coach McAdoo to take advantage. What my contact couldn’t, or wouldn’t say was whether the Giants had Engram or Howard rated higher but he did imply there wasn’t much difference.

The Giants were looking at offensive linemen, but in the end just didn’t see the value. Remember a few days at back when at the pre-draft pressers someone (Reese or Ross) commented how the Giants put their own players on the board which had us all scratching our heads. Sounds like the OL available this week didn’t grade any higher than the guys they currently have. And while it would have been nice to bring some new blood in to compete up front earlier than they did they felt the guys the new guys weren’t going to more than competition for the current roster (which probably wouldn’t have been a bad thing, but other than Webb they hope that the guys taken in rounds 1-5 will contribute sooner rather than later in some fashion.)

It sounds like the Giants came close to pulling the trigger on Webb in the second round, but they really liked Tomlinson who they feel is a physical, high-motor guy who will combine nicely with Snacks and did represent a major upgrade over what they currently have inside on the D-line.

One also got the feeling talking with this guy that the interest in Mahomes/Webb goes beyond just finding a future replacement for Eli and that there is a certain frustration within the organization that other than those two Super Bowl stretches Eli really has never taken his game to the next level on a consistent basis. I have been as big an Eli fan as there is, but its hard to argue with the fact that in his career Eli has finished in the top ten in the league in passing efficiency just once (he was 22^nd in 2016) and there continue to be just too many turnovers. This year for example Brady, Ryan and Prescott had 13 picks combined, while Eli had 16 on his own. In fact only once in his career has he had fewer than 13 picks in a season. And one can blame the OL to a degree, but the fact is that other than Prescott at Dallas, none of the other top QBs in the league operate behind OLs that are anything more than pedestrian. Time will tell.