With the NFL Draft quickly approaching, let’s take a look back at the best late-round draft picks for the NY Giants over the last two decades.
We’re at the time of year now where mock drafts, player evaluations, and scouting reports are nonstop, that’s no different for the NY Giants ahead of the NFL Draft.
Even with virtual pro days, no official NFL combine in Indianapolis, and an unprecedented amount of players having sat out their senior/draft-eligible seasons, it doesn’t slow down all 32 NFL organizations from trying to find their next group of All-Pros and impact players.
While hitting with your early round draft picks is always going to be key, finding production and quality talent in the later rounds is where teams truly gain an edge. Hitting on later round picks turns a good draft into a great one and can greatly speed up a team’s rebuild.
Guys like Terrell Davis, Bart Starr, Mike Webster, Shannon Sharpe, Bo Jackson, and Tom Brady were all taken late in the draft, and not much needs to be said about how their careers panned out.
For the NY Giants, this goal of finding hidden gems in the later rounds of the draft is no different, and one that is too soon to say they’ve achieved from the previous two draft classes.
Even if it’s too soon to determine how good these later round guys will become, the future seems promising for guys the Giants have drafted in recent years, like Darius Slayton, Julian Love, Darnay Holmes, Shane Lemieux, Carter Coughlin, and Tae Crowder – all guys taken in the 4th round or later of the NFL Draft.
The problem for the NY Giants is the rather bleak and unimpressive list of late round draft picks from 2008 – 2018. In that time frame, the NY Giants selected 40 players between the 4th-7th rounds and those players have produced a grand total of 0 Pro Bowls. The most productive of those 40 picks has been Wayne Gallman, with Devon Kennard next followed by BJ Goodson.
And while I understand hitting on later round talent is few and far between, the fact that hardly any of those picks for the Giants in that time period turned in solid, quality players was a huge reason the roster was always lacking depth and overall talent to consistently compete.
With all that said, even though the Giants didn’t have much late round success in that time period, they’ve still been able to find some great players on day three of the draft since 2000. Players that went on to become franchise greats who greatly contributed to both of the Super Bowl runs in 2007 and 2011.
To clarify, we’ll only be looking at guys taken on day three of the draft, between rounds 4-7.
So, let’s take a look at the Top-5 late round NFL Draft picks by the NY Giants since 2000:
5. Kevin Boss, TE, 2007 Draft: 5th Round (153 Overall)
Kevin Boss was drafted out of Western Oregon as a two-sport athlete playing both football and basketball.
Boss, 6-6, 255 pounds, he was an athletic, lengthy target for Eli Manning to look for when starting tight end Jeremy Shockey wasn’t playing.
That’s exactly what ended up happening in Boss’ rookie season, when he replaced an injured Shockey toward the end of the year and starting the final two regular season games.
Boss only managed nine receptions for 118 receiving yards and 2 touchdowns in the regular season, but almost matched his receiving output in the playoffs hauling in five receptions for 90 yards. Half of those yards came on his lone catch of Super Bowl XLII, which went for 45-yards and was the longest play from scrimmage for both teams in the game.
The following season, Boss became the starting tight end and over the next three years, amassed 1,492 yards and 16 touchdowns on 110 receptions. His final two seasons with Big Blue he surpassed 500 receiving yards both years and notched 10 touchdowns.
While he was only a solid contributor for really three full seasons, his emergence in the 2007 playoff run and semi-filling the shoes of fan favorite Jeremy Shockey went a long way for his impact as a Giant.