Giants Draft: Playmakers

The 2012 Draft is deep in wide receiver talent, and the BPA at 32 when the Giants are picking might very well be a WR. It could also be a TE. There are really only 2 or 3 WR's who should be in the mix for the Giants at 32. Alshon Jeffery is certainly one of them. He's fallen off of wild QB instability on his team this year with Stephen Garcia and weight gain. Alshon is a big kid and he will have to watch his weight to be the player he can and should be. But the player he can and should be is a GREAT PLAYER. Not just good, great. He's a beast in the Hakeem Nicks mold, but I think just a bit bigger, but is the same sort of physical guy who can beat and beat on corners all day long. The Giants have had very good luck with players like this, and it wouldn't shock me if they decided to give Eli another potentially great target.

Rueben Randle is the next guy the Giants might be considering. His tools are not as great as Alshon's and he doesn't quite have the hands of Jeffery, Nicks or one of the other WR's I'm going to discuss, but he does have good size and speed and great feet. He'll be able to run the full route tree and burn corners with his change of direction skills. He's not a body catcher. He just really needs to concentrate on catching it before letting his feet do their things. He'd be a nice fit inside or out and could execute the plays, nice value at 32.

The next guy at 32 is Stephen Hill. Hill is a size/speed freak who tested through the roof at the combine. That being said, he came from a bad passing attack at GaTech where they didn't throw much. As a result he's a good blocker, but is not particularly well developed as a WR. The problem for me, when I watched him or looked at tape is that he looked so unnatural catching the ball and really seemed to have trouble getting his feet right. So, what you too often see is a body catcher who falls down instead of scoring. Now, this guy certainly has the size and straightline speed to be special, but his hands and feet scare me a bit. Hopefully it was just the system, but this one scares me a bit.

A guy I love who probably isn't in the mix at 32 is Muhamed Sanu from Rutgers. Like Jernigan at Troy, he did it all for Rutgers, but he has terrific size to boot. Like Jernigan he played with weak armed QBs so his deep game didn't have much use. That said, he has great hands and feet and breaks tackles with the ball in his hands. Another player with Nicks-like hands and physicality and the type of target Eli clearly loves. This is a guy I would consider using the 2 and 4 on if we need to move up. Giant type receiver with none of the Alshon baggage.

If the Giants pass on all 4 of these guys, don't worry. It's a crazy deep class and the Giants are good at finding WR's.

The TE I alluded to earlier is obviously Colby Fleener out of Stanford. Fleener is like a faster version of Todd Heap. He's not as physical as Shockey or Bavaro, thus the Giants really haven't had anything like him. And I'm not so sure they'd want to add that to a passing game that's not broken. Unless they are. Mario is gone and they need a new 3rd receiver, who says it has to be a WR? Maybe Coughlin and Gilbride but we'll see. Eli would certainly love having a big fast target with great hands like Fleener, but the Giants might prefer finding those virtues in one of the WR's rather than re-writing the playbook for Fleener.

The Giants will probably choose another TE somewhere, it just might be more of a two way guy who can run the occasional seem pattern.

Whichever guys they go with, the Giants do love giving Eli playmakers. And don't be surprised if they do again.