NY Giants following Dallas Cowboys’ offensive roster building approach

The NY Giants seem to be picking up on a successful strategy one of their biggest NFC East rivals used on their pathway to rebuilding themselves into a winning team.

That’s right, the NY Giants are taking a page out of Jerry (well, Stephen, really) Jones’ rebuilding personnel playbook by building through the offensive line and a young quarterback on a rookie deal.

Somewhere along the lines of their four mediocre seasons between 2010-13 – where the Cowboys didn’t achieve a winning record once – the Jones’ decided that building through the offensive line would be their path back to a quick rebuild.

That gameplan worked in spades; starting out with the drafting of All-Pros Tyron Smith in 2011, center Travis Fredrick in 2013, and Zack Martin in 2014.

Luckily, son Stephen Jones was there to talk his father Jerry out of drafting QB Johnny Manziel over Zack Martin in 2014, as if that pick was made these last seven years would have gone much differently for the Cowboys.

The NY Giants haven’t yet invested quite that much in the O-line from a draft perscprive, but Dave Gettleman is clearly taking it seriously after spending his #4 overall pick this season on left tackle Andrew Thomas, spending a second on guard Will Hernandez, and a third on tackle Matt Peart since taking over.

In addition, he found his NY Giants version of undrafted Cowboys offensive tackle La’el Collins in Nick Gates and shrewdly signed him to a team-friendly extension recently just like Dallas has done with all of their ‘hog mollies’ when the right time came.

Hopefully, that’s a sign of more things to come for Gettleman as the way the Cowboys have been able to keep their historically-good offensive line together is by extending them early so the team can potentially save a bunch of money on the backend.

That’s exactly what they did with All-Pro left tackle Tyron Smith when they locked him up to a ridiculous 7 year/98M contract extension (12M per) with very little guarantees, and they’ve made similar moves in locking up the now-retired Travis Fredrick and still All-Pro Zach Martin.

Now, let’s get to the part of the plan that really sets a team up for success and the NY Giants are trying to emulate, as well.