A Tale of Two Drafts for Joe Schoen

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.

"Trader Dave" Silences the Haters

I have two questions for the man posing as Giants general manager. Who are you and what have you done with Dave Gettleman?

Seriously, in the past eight NFL drafts, five of which were with the Carolina Panthers, Gettleman hadn't once traded back. And with six picks in this year's draft, including the 11th pick in the first round, it was looking very much like number nine wasn't going to be any different.

And then...

The Philadelphia Eagles, who had the 12th pick in the first round, decided to leap frog ahead of the Giants, and took DeVonta Smith, considered by some as the best receiver in the draft, with the 10th pick. There's no doubt Gettleman had Smith on his board and would've taken him had he been there, so you can just imagine what the scene was like at MetLife Stadium after the Eagle selection.

With Smith gone, Gettleman examined his options. He still wanted a receiver but pondered possibly taking Micah Parsons, the linebacker from Penn State, who everyone and their grandmother had rated the best defensive prospect in the draft. That's when the Chicago Bears entered the picture. The Bears had the 20th pick and they were looking for a quarterback, having struck out trying to pry Russel Wilson away from Seattle.

Since the 49ers threw a monkey wrench into everything and chose Trey Lance instead of Mac Jones with the 3rd overall pick, the conventional wisdom was that Bill Belichick would grab Jones with the 15th pick. That left Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields available. But would Fields still be there at 20? That was the sixty-four thousand dollar question. No one knows who initiated contact, but when all was said and done, the Bears and Giants swapped first round picks and the Giants wound up getting the Bear's fifth round pick this year and the Bear's first and fourth round picks in 2022. 

Given it was Gettleman's first trade down, it was a nice haul. Not only did he get a quality receiver in Kadarius Toney with the 20th pick, he accumulated valuable draft capital for next year's draft, which almost everybody agrees will be deeper and richer than this one.

Gettleman wasn't remotely done trading, though. He swapped second round picks with the Dolphins and netted their 2022 third rounder. And with the 50th pick, landed outside linebacker Azeez Ojularo, one of the best pass rushers in the draft. Then in round three, he traded up and snagged cornerback Aaron Robinson, who many analysts thought was a mid- second rounder.

As a result of Gettleman's wheeling and dealing, the Giants had one of the best and most productive drafts that they've had in years. They filled two needs - receiver and edge rusher - and fortified a strength - the secondary. The Giants now have one of the deepest secondaries in the league and have the pass rusher they've been looking for since the glory days of the Tom Coughlin era.

Two years ago, Dave Gettleman panicked and used the 6th overall pick on Daniel Jones when he could've gotten him with the 17th pick. In so doing he let a valuable defensive player in Josh Allen slip away and he was justly ripped for that blunder.

This time around, Gettleman didn't panic. He used his leverage to not just improve the present roster, but the future one as well. With two number one picks in next year's draft, the Giants are well positioned to either improve on what they already have or combine both picks and trade up to draft a new quarterback if they decide Jones isn't the second coming of Eli Manning after all.

It's a position the organization hasn't been in in a very long time. And it's long overdue. Bravo, sir.