Giants Draft Pt.1: Overview

Okay, so this is Giants Draft Pt.1, which is not to be confused with the Giants Offseason posts which are now up to 11.    These parts will focus entirely on the Giant draft, while Offseason will focus on current team issues, hirings and future signings.  Got it?  Good.

I never try to organize the draft by need, because that creates reaches, and sacrifices both draft value and future value.   Drafting for need is just plain dumb.    I like to draft by WANT.   Meaning, I like to look at the Giants and see what can give them the biggest improvements then use the Draft as a shopping tool.

For example, I want better OL's.   They only have two I like at all and 1 can tolerate.  So I want them to hit the OL in FA and the draft.   Now, here comes the first part of the distinction between drafting for need and drafting for want: everyone knows and even says that OL is a big need for the Giants.

And that's true.  But I don't want to go reaching for them.  I've only seen 2 kind of OL's ever succeed for the Giants, and I'm really not interested in experimenting with that formula.  So, I want to find some OL's with good feet, strong hands and consistency.  Arm length is not as big a deal as I used to think it was.   Seubert, Snee, Pugh and the Cowboys Zach Martin, are the proof.   But I want rough, tough guys like that, or big, naturally powerful, suprisingly athletic guys like Shawn Andrews.

So unless they fit those parameters, I am not taking them just to take them.

Similarly, though the Giants have big presumtive needs at LB and S, I'm not going to go reaching around for them.  We need football players, not athletes, at both positions. So I won't buy the combine helium from any of them unless there is game tape to back it up.

I do want the Giants to add another running back and and another WR, though these are not their on the list of their top needs.   With a fixed OL, the  chance for making big plays goes up.  So, we need to replace David Wilson at RB, and we need to add another big play receiver, to take some heat off of OBJ and Cruz, create more chaos for secondaries, and in case Cruz isn't Cruz anymore.  

And I always like to take a CB.   So, we'll see what happens.

I do want the Giants to hit their immediate needs, like a run stopping DT and a good LG in FA.  By doing this they can really hit their wants and become that much more dominant.