Giants Draft: TE's

During the college football season Louisiana-Lafayette's Ladarius Green jumped out at me as the type of guy the Giants definitely would have drafted back when Jerry Reece himself was officially running the board from 2003-2007. Under Marc Ross, I'm not as sure. It feels like Marc is slightly more likely to find a Giant type who is a major college sleeper than the small school gems Jerry used to routinely grab. Part of this is because places like Troy or University of South Florida or East Carolina or UConn have really raised their profiles since the days when Jerry was doing it all and part of it might just be the way talent is distributed right now. It also seems like the professional draft guides are doing a better job of sort of slotting the kids who would have been obscure several years ago.

Thus the Giants are still getting their share of "ringers" but some are sort of hiding in plain sight. Take a guy like James Brewer last year. Here was a huge kid with great natural size, terrific feet and long arms, but with very little football experience having been a basketball player all through high school --- and he was a senior from Illinois. His narrative is very similar to JPP's, only JPP was a junior from South Florida, which is just really starting to produce picks. Now both are Marc picks, but their stories and USF make them seem like Jerry picks. Under both Jerry and Marc it's mostly been the same group of scouts trying to find value with the same tools. And we've won 2 Super Bowls as a direct results of our scouts using the Giant criteria.

So what does this have to do with the TE's we might like. Probably nothing. But if the Giants don't take Fleener, I think they will still take a TE, and I think it will be someone with upside in the passing game, though probably not an HBack. Don't be surprised if it is someone like Green, or Egnew from Missouri who fell after Gabbert left, or Evan Rodriguez from Temple, or Hanna from Oklahoma, Robinson from Cincy or even a Kevin Koger from Michigan. Green is my favorite from this group, but I like Robinson, too.

So anyway, I think we'll take a tight end sooner or later, and I think it will be a guy with upside in the passing game.