Giants report: more from the tea leaves … We have noted on several occasions in the past that one of the fun aspects, particularly as a Giants fan, is to try and figure out what they’re looking in terms of an upcoming. And one of the real challenges in ‘trying to read the tea leaves’ is not to get invested in your initial analysis such that you miss later clues. That said, we still think all the signs for this month’s draft continue to point to the Giants first, second and third priorities are to try and get the best receiver to give 9hopefully) QB Daniel Jones a legitimate #1 target. In fact, about the only thing we’d add to that context is that Southern Cal’s Jordan Addison is also very likely in the mix of receivers that the Giants would be willing to target with a trade up along with the three guys – Ohio State’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Quentin Johnston of TCU and Boston College’s Zay Flowers – who they were all over at their respective pro days.
The somewhat scary thing about the whole business, though, is that the road to an actual trade up actually looks like a potential minefield. Right now, it would appear that the most cost effective area for the Giants to move up to is the 18-19-20 range. However, there is no guarantee that any of those 4 receivers will still be on the board at that point. There are rumblings, for example, that BC’s Flowers could actually get some top ten looks from several teams – Las Vegas, which picks 7th, for example, has had him in for a visit – while there are several teams in the 12-15 range – Houston, New England and Green Bay in particular – each of whom has a WR high on the draft shopping list. Then there’s the somewhat interesting situation of Pittsburgh at #17. In particular, would the Steelers consider selecting Addison, who was Kenny Pickett’s favorite target in their days together at Pitt, at that spot even though they have much bigger needs at other positions. Then there is also the fact that there are several teams selecting just ahead of the Giants – the Chargers at #21, Baltimore at #22 and Minnesota at #23 – as well as a couple picking after them – Dallas and Kansas City – that are also all looking hard at the receivers, although with Baltimore signing Odell Beckham the Ravens may be less inclined to move up to get a WR.
Where we are having some second thoughts, though, is what the Giants might be targeting with their second round pick. Indeed, as recently as this past Tuesday during a draft chat over on Eric Kennedy’s Big Blue Interactive site I responded “So far the indications are that the Giants are reasonably comfortable with what they have at C and aren’t necessarily looking for a starter in the draft” in response to a question what the chances were that the Giants selected an offensive lineman – and especially a C – with an early pick. On further review, though, while the Giants senior personnel people have spent pretty much all their time with the receivers, it appears that the offensive line is the position other than WR that they have put – by far – the most resources into in the past few weeks. And that resource is mostly offensive line coach Bobby Johnson who has been front and center at just about all the prominent second-tier OL workouts. Indeed, it appears that Johnson in fact has actually run the drills at most of them. he did so at Wisconsin C/G Joe Tippmann’s private workout Friday; Johnson also reportedly ran the OL drills at Minnesota C John Michael Schmitz’ pro day last month after taking him to dinner; he also ran the drills at Matt Bergeron’s pro day at Syracuse and was front and center at Cody Mauch’s day at North Dakota State. And the simple fact is that your OL coach doesn’t spend that much time on the road in such key settings without there being some real interest there.
