It's officially the eve of the NFL draft, and as it stands, the NY Giants don't have their first pick until late in the first round. Since 2015, the first round has been fairly kind to Big Blue. The Giants brass has drafted the likes of Saquon Barkley, Daniel Jones, Dexter Lawrence and Kayvon Thibodeaux.
There are a few blemishes, however, and you can argue none are bigger than 2015 first-rounder Ereck Flowers. Looking at the first round as a whole, 2015 wasn't terribly impressive. Sure there are guys who have been able to hang around like Jameis Winston, DeVante Parker and Byron Jones.
But, when you're a first-round pick, that comes with expectations to be a franchise-altering player. This is what the Giants were hoping for when they took Flowers No. 9 overall. That isn't what they got. Flowers lasted just three full seasons with the G-Men and allowed the most total pressures (169) of any tackle during that time. When looking back at the draft class, there's four guys in particular we would have loved to have if a re-draft was possible:
4. DL Arik Armstead
The defensive lineman out of Oregon was taken eight picks after Flowers at No. 17 by the San Francisco 49ers and has been there ever since. The D-Line wasn't exactly a position of need for the Giants, so I understand why they didn't go far him. Hindsight is always 20/20, though. Armstead would have joined a unit that consisted of Jason Pierre-Paul, Robert Ayers and Johnathan Hankins. They would have been able to recreate something reminiscent of the 2007 defensive line just eight years later.
That group wouldn't have lasted too long, unfortunately. All of those guys were out of East Rutherford by the time 2018 started. On the flip side, Armsetad is still in the league, so just think of what this unit would look like in 2023. Armstead, Leonard Williams, Dexter Lawrence (pending contract dispute) and new addition A'Shawn Robinson. That's the type of unit dreams are made of.
Armstead has 28.5 sacks in his eight years of service in the NFL. The guy knows how to get after the quarterback and he's proven that with being an anchor on the 49ers defesnive line alongside Nick Bosa. He would have been a perfect Giant in an alternate universe. He would have been able to play under the minds of Patrick Graham and now Wink Martindale.