In fact, there’s actually less than a month to go until the first picks come off the board at the 2023 draft. And with the pro days pretty much in the books, teams will be heading home and hunkering down in their respective war rooms putting the final touches on their boards and firming up the areas they’d like to address at the end of the month. Here’s our somewhat outside the box look at what we think are the Giants remaining issues heading into the draft.
1 #1 receiver … Note that we didn’t call this the Giants ‘needs’ list. Fact is we hate the term. Teams do have needs. Mostly though, they have areas they want to upgrade. In the particular case of the Giants, they have only one real need – and by a need we mean an area that you just have to address if you want to have any real chance of improving – and that’s the lack of a true #1 receiver. Indeed, every one of the very good teams in the league that the Giants are trying to catch have their elite receiver (if not more than one) and the way the NFL has evolved the past few years, a team’s #1 receiver is quite literally going to be their second most important player after their QB. And it’s why the Giants were all over the top three WRs available for the 2023 draft at their respective days, although they’ll almost assuredly have to trade up to get one of them. (Of course, there is more than one way to skin a cat, and we would expect the Giants would still be more than willing to trade for a quality veteran receiver if there’s one out who fits their bill.) Whatever they do at the position, we think a pretty good case can be made that just how quickly the Giants close the gap on the top teams in the league will be very much determined by what they can come up at the position this month.
2 Offensive line … And no we are not talking about C here. Fact is just about everybody looking at the Giants says that RT Evan Neal just has to better this fall than during his uneven rookie season when far too often he made like a turnstile. Cause if he doesn’t get better, the Giants are just going to have to get him out of there. And to do that they are going to need some kind of insurance policy which they don’t have right now. Of course, they could always simply sign a veteran swing tackle. At the same time, though, it shouldn’t be a total surprise if the looked to a G/T type like Cody Mauch of North Dakota State or Syracuse’s Matt Bergeron, among others, as a little insurance. They played LT in college but are versatile enough to kick inside if needed. Mauch is particularly intriguing in that he was arguably the best OT, the best OG AND the best C at this year’s Senior Bowl.
3. Defensive line … We have made the case elsewhere that the main reason we are quietly optimistic about the upcoming season is the potential of the defensive line to be a really disruptive unit. Last year, for example, DT Leo Williams and DEs Az Ojualri and Kayvon Thibodeaux combined for just 12 sacks when they are each quite literally capable of posting double digit sacks. It will be tough for the DL to reach its potential if guys like Dex Lawrence have to play 80-85% of the defensive snaps, Got to keep them fresh and a vet FA like Rakeem Nunez-Roches helps; so would geting DJ Davidson back, but right now the DL depth is really thin.
In that context we also repeat the observation from the Giants’ owner’s meetings pressers in which both John Mara and Joe Schoen indicated that in addition to ‘getting some pieces around Daniel Jones’ the one priority they both mentioned was stopping the run, not so much for the sake of stopping the run, but to get other teams in 3rd and long so they could ‘unleash’ their pass rushers.
4. Cornerback … Certainly a case can be made that this could be higher on the list. The Giants don’t have a true #2 corner to line up opposite Adoree Jackson. And its no secret that defensive co-ordinator likes to play a lot of press coverage so he can unleash his pass rushers. However, the reason why we have this is a slightly lower issue is that the Giants do have a #1 guy at the position and they have a number of what they hope are emerging young players that they will be able to mix and match over the course of the season. In the end, maybe the most interesting question for us at the 2023 draft will be how early the Giants do nab a corner.
5. Running back … And no this isn’t because Saquon Barkley’s going anywhere anytime soon. Saquon is a weapon on a team that doesn’t have enough weapons. However, you have to keep him fresh and you’re not going to do that slamming him 25-30 times a game into 9-10-11 man boxes. To do that you need a dependable complimentary back and nobody should be surprised if it comes as early as the 3rd round. Interesting too that most of the RB prospects that the Giants have been looking at like Tyjae Spears are really fast.
6. Offensive line, part deux … OK you almost made me do it! However, I would be very surprised if the Giants use an early pick later his month on a C, especially with a view to having that guy start this fall. In fact, the sense I have is that a) the Giants are actually reasonably comfortable with the guys they have (otherwise they don’t let Jon Feliciano walk away for basically peanuts and b) if they have any lingering issues at the position they’re more likely to address them at least in the short term with another mid-priced free agent type. At the same time, you really do want to keep a pipeline of young offensive linemen coming into your system especially from the middle rounds of the draft.
