The New York Giants have been shocking the entire NFL all offseason long.
First, they let Landon Collins walk away to a division rival for nothing before trading their star player Odell Beckham Jr. to the Cleveland Browns.
Just when it looked like the team was committing to tanking, they decided to sign over-the-hill wide receiver Golden Tate to a deal that signaled that they still want to compete right now. Given their reliant ability to confound fans and analysts alike, it only made sense that the Giants would stun everyone on the biggest day of the NFL offseason: Draft Day.
With the sixth overall pick, the Giants could have chosen from a myriad of top-tier defensive players. After all, they could certainly use one of them now that Damon “Snacks” Harrison, Eli Apple and Collins were all voluntarily given up by the organization.
However, the Giants decided to go a much different route. After months of repeating the mantra that Eli Manning can excel under center for years to come, general manager Dave Gettleman decided to spend his coveted draft capital on a quarterback.
At first glance, that does not sound so bad. Manning’s play has been on the decline for years now and at 38, he’s not exactly a spring chicken.Giants fans would have welcomed the addition of a QB.
In fact, every quarterback aside from Kyler Murray was still on the board. The Giants essentially had their pick of the litter.
This makes it even more confounding that the team passed on higher-rated talents like Dwayne Haskins to instead draft a QB that many experts didn’t even have going in the first round.
Gettleman has now put the future of his job, reputation and franchise in the hands of lesser-known Duke alum Daniel Jones.
On top of being considered by most to be much less talented than Haskins, many experts agree that Jones would have still been available when the Giants were on the clock again with the 17th overall pick.
Dave Gettleman refuted these analyses, of course, instead spouting the seemingly baseless and unprovable rumors that Jones would have been off the board by the time their next pick rolled around.
Their selection of Jones over Haskins has outraged many, with some like Hall of Famer Cris Carter even questioning whether the choice has anything to do with race.
Given the organization’s dark history in terms of racial relations and their eye-opening lack of diversity at the position — only one African American has ever started a game at QB in the franchise’s history — the allegations cannot be completely brushed off.
Perhaps even worse is the fact that their division rival the Washington Redskins had no problem selecting Haskins 15th overall.
Now the Giants will have to face Haskins twice a year for the next decade, constantly reminding them of their decision to pass him up.Things become even worse when considering that the Giants could have taken a quarterback last year when they had the second overall pick.
They could have drafted everyone on the board — Sam Darnold, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, Lamar Jackson — except Baker Mayfield, who went first overall to the Browns, but instead elected to go with running back Saquon Barkley.
Taking Barkley made little sense in the grand scheme of things. Considering the sorry state of Big Blue’s offensive line and the even worse state of their franchise as it stands right now, the dynamic star could end up wasting much of his prime for a sub-.500 team.
No one is denying Barkley’s talent, but running backs do not win championships.
Organizations almost never draft halfbacks that high in today’s day and age for that very reason.
It isn’t like Manning was lighting up the field then either, so a quarterback in that quarterback- heavy draft could have already been sitting behind the future Hall of Famer, learning from him and thus quickening what looks to be a lengthy rebuild.
Even if New York is convinced that Jones is the future, as they so clearly are, they did not have to select him with their first pick.
If the Giants had simply waited until pick No. 17 to get their guy, they could have picked a top defensive player and still gotten their quarterback later.Instead, they were goaded by smarter executives into drafting Jones way too early and thus allowing the better players to be drafted by other teams.
New Yorkers have understandably been outraged by the selection.
Every major New York City newspaper had only negative headlines in regards to the QB.
It’s possible that Gettleman is just much smarter than everyone else but it is much more likely that at 68 years old, the game has just passed him by.His decisions so far as general manager have been questionable at best.
Big Blue had so many roads to choose from in deciding their QB of the future, but they chose to take the one that no one else seemed willing to travel: Daniel Jones.
Aside from the aforementioned options, the Giants could have also traded for Rosen during the draft, who already has a year of NFL experience under his belt and a very low asking price from the Arizona Cardinals. Alternatively, they could have just waited for the next strong QB draft, which conveniently is occurring next season.
There’s likely to be a plethora of fresh quarterback talent entering the NFL next year, but the Giants would once again look completely inept if they decide to take QBs in back-to-back years.
The last organization to do that was the dumpster fire Cardinals, who seem to have no idea what they are doing and thus haven’t figured out that they should have fired their general manager by now.
New York is in the same position. There is still hope that this Jones pick could work out. Stranger things have happened.
Right now, though, the Giants seem to be the Cardinals of the east. If this turns out to be as ugly as it looks right now, the franchise will be set back for years and it is likely that Gettleman will be sentenced to an early retirement.
