Round one of the 2022 NFL Draft couldn't have gone any better for Joe Schoen if he had choreographed it himself. Thanks to the four teams picking ahead of him, he had the good fortune of snatching two of the best players in the draft at numbers 5 and 7: OLB Kayvon Thibodeaux and OT Evan Neal. Thibodeaux was considered the second best defensive prospect behind Aiden Hutchinson and Neal was the top-ranked tackle in the draft.
It's rare indeed when the Twitterverse is in agreement - sorta like a solar eclipse and the planets lining up in a row all on the same day - but suffice to say that by the end of the evening, if Schoen had decided to run for mayor of New York, he would've won in a landslide.
Unfortunately for Schoen there were six more rounds left in the draft: two on Friday and four on Saturday. Let's just say for the sake of argument that by the Friday night, most of the good will Schoen had amassed on day one dissipated, like air escaping from a balloon. It's not that WR Wan'Dale Robinson, G Joshua Ezeudu and CB Cor'Dale Flott aren't good players or won't contribute in some way to the Giants; it's that they could easily have been selected in the fourth and fifth rounds. The general consensus was that Schoen reached on all three.
He didn't stop there, though. TE Daniel Bellinger, S Dane Belton, LB Micah McFadden, DL DJ Davidson, G Marcus McKethan and LB Darrian Beavers were all taken in rounds four thru seven on Saturday. If Friday's picks were any indication, it's clear what Schoen's mission is: to replenish this organization's pipeline of talent that his predecessor Dave Gettleman neglected. Seven of the eleven players Schoen selected in the draft were either offensive linemen or defensive front seven. That, I can assure you, is no accident. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's wrong with this team. Apart from figuring out whether or not Daniel Jones is a franchise quarterback - the smart money's on the latter - the line of scrimmage has been an unmitigated disaster for years. Fixing that has to be priority number one.
So Schoen, after hitting it out of the park in round one, opted to go for depth the rest of the draft. In fact, he even traded down twice in the second round so he could get even more picks. And based on where this team is right now, I can't say I blame him. When you take over an organization as ineptly run as this one was for years, your first order of business has to be to find as many able bodies as possible who can play. For head coach Brian Daboll to succeed, he has to have the horses.
None of us can predict with any degree of certainty whether the players chosen by Schoen in the second and third days of the draft will make any difference, this season or next. It took years for this franchise to become the train wreck it is. It will take several more years before the salvage project is complete. Think about it: in 2018, the Buffalo Bills were 6-10. Look where they are now. Miracles do occasionally happen.
I know patience is a four letter word for Giants fans, but for now, at least, Joe Schoen deserves the benefit of the doubt.
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