NY Giants Draft: Why their Draft Position Shouldn’t Matter

NY Giants Draft History Conclusion: Why where they pick shouldn’t matter.

In conclusion, there is a lot to digest here.

When stacking up the NY Giants’ best picks since the turn of the millennium, most of the picks occurred from picking later in every round.

Guys such as Kiwanuka (#32), Aaron Ross (#20), Kenny Phillips (#31), Hakeem Nicks (#29), JPP (#15), and Odell Beckham (#12) are much better picks than disappointing players such as Ereck Flowers (#9), Eli Apple (#10), and with the jury out on Saquon at #2 and Jones at #6.

When looking at the team’s four top ten picks since 2010, it’s eye-opening to see just how ineffective those picks have been. Even worse, look at the guys picked after them such as Todd Gurley, Xavien Howard, Bradley Chubb, Josh Allen, or Quentin Nelson at #2, and Jones is still a major question mark.

It’s very concerning to see four of the team’s worst 1st round picks from the 2010s all came from their top 10 picks. It goes to show you how much a crapshoot the draft really is and no team should ever focus only on one player. Putting your team in a pigeonhole, committing to taking only a certain player or position can set a team back several years.

Look at how teams such as the Saints, Chiefs, and Ravens draft exceptionally well almost every year. The entire core of their teams are guys drafted all over rounds 1 to round 7. They stick with these teams for several years and it’s a major reason these teams have had sustained success the entire decade.

Even looking at the 2nd round, the team has a concerning lack of hits in the draft. Other than Sterling Shepard and Dalvin Tomlinson, not one 2nd round pick has played through their rookie contract or gotten a second deal with NY. All over the NFL, some of the best players at every position can through Day 2 in the 2nd round.

It’s unacceptable to have several good players come from the second round and all leave in Free Agency. Landon Collins, Johnathan Hankins, Weston Richburg, and Linval Joseph were all impactful, important players for the Giants during their rookie contracts with the team. Every player is a unique situation, but it’s concerning to see so many talented players leave the team instead of forming a young, developing core for the future. You need to keep your homegrown talent to stay successful as an organization.

The Giants’ track record in Round 3 is absolutely unacceptable. You can’t simply miss on every 3rd round pick taken year after year. Round 3 is a Day 2 pick and should be a key player to work with and progress as part of the team’s building blocks for the future. Taking risky swings for the fences on unproven or underdeveloped players hasn’t worked back and put the Giants in the position where they are today. Those mid-round picks often make the vast majority of most NFL rosters but the Giants for some reason can’t ever figure out the 3rd round.

Looking back, the NY Giants selected 58 players from 2010 to 2019. In that span, there were 12 1st round picks with only two players signed to a second deal. That’s a lowly 17% hit rate in the first round, or a huge 83% bust rate in the first round. In the 2nd round, there were nine players selected with only one getting a second deal in Shepard who hasn’t nearly lived up to his end of the deal. Resigning 5% of your decade’s 2nd rounders against 95% who left is a paltry number. To wrap it up, out of the 11 3rd round picks, not one proved to be a long-term NFL player or will end up playing 6+ years in the league. Total flops such as Odighizuwa, Davis Webb, Darian Thompson, Bromley, and Hosley are simply pathetic, wasted picks. So again, that’s 58 players and a grand total of three players got a second deal and two of those three were shipped out one year after the extension. So in reality, one player in Sterling Shepard, the team’s current longest-tenured player, has stayed with the team two years after getting a second contract.

These are just dreadful numbers and statistics from the NY Giants’ front office and scouting department. There’s not a more important part to the NY Giants’ success in the 2020s than drafting well, hitting on the first three rounds, and getting reliable, long-term players.

The team seems to have built a foundation for the future with a promising 2020 class. It must follow up with hitting in 2021 with several players that can be in New York for the long run and hopefully help contribute to a championship. Take a look at the Giants draft classes from 2004-2009. Those six classes helped build a dominant run for the Giants culminating in two Super Bowls and many successful draft picks and NFL careers. Every year from ’04 to ’09, the Giants picked in the bottom half of every round every year during that span. And yet, the team found its best draft picks since 2000 and found terrific players in rounds 1, 2, 3, and 4.

2005 is a perfect example of how to draft well. The team only had four picks total that year. Ernie Accorsi didn’t blink and hit on three of his four picks. Webster, Tuck, and Brandon Jacobs were three of the biggest names on two championship teams and all four were there for several years and got second deals with the team. That’s how you build a roster!

Many NY Giants fans point to so many different reasons why this team has the league’s worst record of any team since 2017. Look at their draft record to start. Picking in the top ten every year guarantees no success whatsoever. Unless you want to be a basement dweller such as Cleveland and Buffalo was for the better part of 15 years, the team has to start pounding the red alarms at 1925 Giants Drive to realize the importance and significance of the draft.