What Should The Giants Do at 6?

[PossibleCabbage]

So my top 4 guys in the draft are Calebl, Alt, Nabers, and MHJ.  If one of those guys is there, the Giants should take him.  If none of them are there, the Giants should trade back.

[MSURacerDT55]

11 hours ago, goldfishwars said:

Moving up from 47?

If they have to, yes.

[bucksavage1]

Take a QB in Round 1. That QB could save their jobs. Don’t rely your entire tenure on Jones or Drew Lock 
 

Add to rest of team at 47, probably CB or OL. Pick RB, WR and TE in the mid to late rounds the draft.  Robinson and Hyatt can continue to develop together

[minutemancl]

On 4/10/2024 at 3:11 AM, goldfishwars said:

Imagine you’re the GM of the Giants. You and the entire coaching staff are on the hot seat. You have thrown all of your chips in to sign Daniel Jones to a long-term deal that already looks like bad business. Going into the 2024 season with no competition or succession plan for Jones looks like career suicide. You have no primary receiving target. You have restocked an underperforming offensive line with bottom of the roster level talent. Darren Waller is about to retire. You replaced Saquon Barkley with Devin Singletary. Your starting cornerback opposite Deonte Banks is called Nick McCloud. 

You do not pick again until pick 47. What is the best possible move you can make at 6 to help this franchise?

As a Giants fan who is heavily invested and reads way too much on all of this, here is my take:

I'm not sure I fully believe that Dabs and Schoen are on the hot seat. I think the injury situation last year can be hand-waved away a little bit as an outlier. You had your starting QB go down with a neck injury (again) and a torn ACL. Your backup QB regularly got hurt as well and you had to start an UDFA for a few games. You fielded something like 13 different OL combinations, which included factors like your all-pro LT missing weeks after a week 1 injury on a botched FG attempt and signing a guy "off the couch" to play G because of the injuries there. Saquon was out for 4 weeks with a sprained ankle. It was almost like a perfect storm in a way; the OL got hurt and dismantled immediately, DJ was playing very poorly behind them, then by the time they got their act together and were at least functional, he was already out for the year and you had a combination of Tommy Cutlets and Tyrod Taylor behind them. All this to say that 2022 bought Dabs and Schoen a really good amount of goodwill where they can go back to Mara and say "look what we did with a bad roster just a year ago when our QB was healthy". Put another way: just reverse 2022 and 2023. Imagine the first year of this new era, the Giants go 6-11 and have the 6th overall pick. It would be expected, yeah? Then last year, they win 9 games and win a road playoff game. We'd be singing an entirely different tune. Bottom line, I don't think Schoen and Dabs are in the hot seat as much as people seem to think. They won't be making selections in the draft this year to save their jobs.

Back to Jones: I truly believe that the ACL and 2nd neck injury have given Schoen buyer's remorse and he will be looking to move on from Jones immediately (foreshadowing). The poor play last year when he did play wasn't great obviously, but the injuries are the main concern. You can't rely on him long term anymore. Who knows if he injures his neck again if he'll be able to ever play again? It was definitely a risk to sign him to that deal last year, but it there is a clear exit plan after year 2 of it.

All that said, here is what the Giants need to do (and I think it is what they will do): trade up for a QB this year and take a WR with whatever your next pick is (47 or 70).

The Giants have had all the top QBs either in for top 30 visits or gone to them for private workouts. Schoen and Dabs know what they're looking for. I think Caleb, Maye, JJ, and Daniels are all QBs they like and would move up for. I think Maye is their favorite that is even a remote possibility, but that is probably moot considering he most likely goes 2nd overall to a division rival. If the Giants want to move up for one of these top QBs, and the Patriots, Cardinals, Chargers are willing to trade back, the Giants will get their guy. In a relatively top heavy draft like this one, only having to move back to 6 from the top-5 is a huge, huge bonus. The Giants have the ammo to make a better offer than the Vikings, Broncos, Raiders, or any other team who may be looking to move up for a QB. Even despite the Vikings two first round picks this year, 6 + more is better than any offer the Vikings can offer that is headlined with 11 and 23. That's mainly because, if 4 QBs go top 5, you're looking at a guaranteed MHJr/Nabers at 6, which is extremely tempting for the Patriots, Chargers, or Cardinals.

The chaos and disfunction last year with the Giants has overshadowed the fact that Dabs is a fantastic offensive mind and is a perfect coach to mold a young QB, like one of the top guys in this draft. You've also got the fact that the QB we take can sit for a full year, provided Jones stays healthy. Myself and a few others have watched more All-22 Giants tape than we should have, and the tape shows guys getting open and the offense functioning on a schmatic level for literally the entire year. The QBs we had just would not pull the trigger, or they'd be late, or the throw would be off target, or they would have pressure in their face immediately. A new, good QB solves a lot of problems the Giants had last year on offense.

The other big problem though on offense was the line, and I think the Giants are banking a lot on new OL coach Carmen Bricillo solving a lot of those problems. He fielded an above average OL in Las Vegas the last two years without really any remarkable talent. Kolton Miller was a high draft pick, but everyone else was just a guy that he has playing at a really high level. I don't know how much of exaggeration it is to call former OL coach Bobby Johnson one of the worst OL coaches in the NFL (good luck Washington). We saw JMS, a widely loved C prospect, actively regress throughout the year. We saw Tyre Philips get cut on cutdown day, spend 6 weeks at Stoutland University on the Eagles practice squad, get signed back to the Giants active roster due to the mass amount of injuries, and start at RT the rest of the year looking like an entirely different player from the one that was cut. He developed more in 6 weeks with the Eagles than he did in any amount of time here. The Giants have invested more draft capital in the OL over the past few years than any other team by a HUGE margin (see Doug Analytics twitter account for the chart on this; it is jarring). Andrew Thomas needs to stay healthy, but he is an all-pro LT who performs at a super high level even when hurt but still on the field. JMS and Evan Neal were really high draft picks that need to start pulling their weight and improve. Runyan is a young guard that the Giants view as having his best football in front of him, but at a baseline is an above average pass protector, per advanced metrics. That's 4/5 positions the Giants can reasonably be hopeful of getting average to above average play out of. Eluemunor will play as well, although nobody on the team is saying where. He's a good tackle though, and he can play/has played guard.

Better QB play fixes a lot of what was wrong with this team last year, and I think it is ultimately why you will see the Giants be aggressive in acquiring one in a few weeks in this super talented QB draft.

My second point of them drafting a WR high has similar reasoning. This is an insanely talented WR draft, and the options may be there on day 2 to acquire, if not an X receiver, another guy to add to the stable. While ideally they would get that true X, that's someone you'd have to grab at 6 this year (which is option B, if they for some reason do not get a QB). Dabs has made the best of poor WR rooms before many times. Adding someone like Malachi Corley, Xavier Legette, or even Jermaine Burton, guys that can make things happen after the catch, to a WR room with Wan'Dale Robinson, Darius Slayton, and Jalin Hyatt can definitely give you a 'good enough' WR room. Wan'Dale missed more or less the first half the season last year recovering from his ACL injury, but he looked damn good in the 2nd half of the year. Like, really good. He's someone to watch going forward, legitimately. Darius Slayton is guaranteed to produce 700 yards, 15+ YPC, and 3 TDs every year, regardless of QB talent. He's done it 4/5 years he's been with the Giants. Those aren't world beater numbers, but they are solid #2 numbers. Jalin Hyatt is a big slot with world beater speed that should have produced a ton more last year if the QBs we had throwing could have actually gotten him the ball. Watching the Giants all-22 is so frustrating in large part because of how many times he got open last year deep down the field and was either just missed or not even looked at.

The Giants defense is in decent shape. The front 7 is legit; headlined by Dexter Lawrence, Kayvon Thibodeaux is coming off a double digit sack season, we just signed Brian Burns, Bobby Okereke is a top off-ball LB in the entire NFL, and Micah McFadden is a rising star as well as an off-ball LB. The corner situation is for sure in desperate need of help, and I don't see the Giants investing draft capital in the position earlier than the 3rd round, which means you're not looking at great new contributions there. The only solace we have is that Jerome Henderson is one of the best DB coaches in the league and regularly gets way above expected play out of nobodies at that position.

The Giants roster is far from elite teams like the Eagles, Dallas, Chiefs, etc. But they are more middle of the pack, when you consider the coaching, than bottom of the barrel. The most effective, and fastest, way to fix the team is by getting one of these top QBs in this year's draft. Dabs would love to work with a big guy with a great arm and penchant for impromptu plays like Drake Maye, a sparkplug running threat with a great deep ball like Jayden Daniels, or a cerebral, young 3rd down magician like JJ (especially since he could sit a year).

[Shockwave]

Whelp I agree with the poll. Take Nabers and try and trade back up to get either Penix or Nix. It's the most impactful play. There is alot of talent on this defense and the offenses best weapon doesn't even know if he's going to suit up or retire. The offense is pathetic. Bring in a true #1 WR and a young athletic QB like Penix mixed with a young talented defense and you might just make some progress towards contention. My second choice would be to trade down to 11-15 and nab Penix there use the extra pick equity to fill some holes and get the best WR and Benson. It really needs to be an offensive heavy draft. But my expectation is they move up to 4 and take JJ. 

[Tugboat]

11 hours ago, minutemancl said:

As a Giants fan who is heavily invested and reads way too much on all of this, here is my take:

I'm not sure I fully believe that Dabs and Schoen are on the hot seat. I think the injury situation last year can be hand-waved away a little bit as an outlier. You had your starting QB go down with a neck injury (again) and a torn ACL. Your backup QB regularly got hurt as well and you had to start an UDFA for a few games. You fielded something like 13 different OL combinations, which included factors like your all-pro LT missing weeks after a week 1 injury on a botched FG attempt and signing a guy "off the couch" to play G because of the injuries there. Saquon was out for 4 weeks with a sprained ankle. It was almost like a perfect storm in a way; the OL got hurt and dismantled immediately, DJ was playing very poorly behind them, then by the time they got their act together and were at least functional, he was already out for the year and you had a combination of Tommy Cutlets and Tyrod Taylor behind them. All this to say that 2022 bought Dabs and Schoen a really good amount of goodwill where they can go back to Mara and say "look what we did with a bad roster just a year ago when our QB was healthy". Put another way: just reverse 2022 and 2023. Imagine the first year of this new era, the Giants go 6-11 and have the 6th overall pick. It would be expected, yeah? Then last year, they win 9 games and win a road playoff game. We'd be singing an entirely different tune. Bottom line, I don't think Schoen and Dabs are in the hot seat as much as people seem to think. They won't be making selections in the draft this year to save their jobs.

Back to Jones: I truly believe that the ACL and 2nd neck injury have given Schoen buyer's remorse and he will be looking to move on from Jones immediately (foreshadowing). The poor play last year when he did play wasn't great obviously, but the injuries are the main concern. You can't rely on him long term anymore. Who knows if he injures his neck again if he'll be able to ever play again? It was definitely a risk to sign him to that deal last year, but it there is a clear exit plan after year 2 of it.

All that said, here is what the Giants need to do (and I think it is what they will do): trade up for a QB this year and take a WR with whatever your next pick is (47 or 70).

The Giants have had all the top QBs either in for top 30 visits or gone to them for private workouts. Schoen and Dabs know what they're looking for. I think Caleb, Maye, JJ, and Daniels are all QBs they like and would move up for. I think Maye is their favorite that is even a remote possibility, but that is probably moot considering he most likely goes 2nd overall to a division rival. If the Giants want to move up for one of these top QBs, and the Patriots, Cardinals, Chargers are willing to trade back, the Giants will get their guy. In a relatively top heavy draft like this one, only having to move back to 6 from the top-5 is a huge, huge bonus. The Giants have the ammo to make a better offer than the Vikings, Broncos, Raiders, or any other team who may be looking to move up for a QB. Even despite the Vikings two first round picks this year, 6 + more is better than any offer the Vikings can offer that is headlined with 11 and 23. That's mainly because, if 4 QBs go top 5, you're looking at a guaranteed MHJr/Nabers at 6, which is extremely tempting for the Patriots, Chargers, or Cardinals.

The chaos and disfunction last year with the Giants has overshadowed the fact that Dabs is a fantastic offensive mind and is a perfect coach to mold a young QB, like one of the top guys in this draft. You've also got the fact that the QB we take can sit for a full year, provided Jones stays healthy. Myself and a few others have watched more All-22 Giants tape than we should have, and the tape shows guys getting open and the offense functioning on a schmatic level for literally the entire year. The QBs we had just would not pull the trigger, or they'd be late, or the throw would be off target, or they would have pressure in their face immediately. A new, good QB solves a lot of problems the Giants had last year on offense.

The other big problem though on offense was the line, and I think the Giants are banking a lot on new OL coach Carmen Bricillo solving a lot of those problems. He fielded an above average OL in Las Vegas the last two years without really any remarkable talent. Kolton Miller was a high draft pick, but everyone else was just a guy that he has playing at a really high level. I don't know how much of exaggeration it is to call former OL coach Bobby Johnson one of the worst OL coaches in the NFL (good luck Washington). We saw JMS, a widely loved C prospect, actively regress throughout the year. We saw Tyre Philips get cut on cutdown day, spend 6 weeks at Stoutland University on the Eagles practice squad, get signed back to the Giants active roster due to the mass amount of injuries, and start at RT the rest of the year looking like an entirely different player from the one that was cut. He developed more in 6 weeks with the Eagles than he did in any amount of time here. The Giants have invested more draft capital in the OL over the past few years than any other team by a HUGE margin (see Doug Analytics twitter account for the chart on this; it is jarring). Andrew Thomas needs to stay healthy, but he is an all-pro LT who performs at a super high level even when hurt but still on the field. JMS and Evan Neal were really high draft picks that need to start pulling their weight and improve. Runyan is a young guard that the Giants view as having his best football in front of him, but at a baseline is an above average pass protector, per advanced metrics. That's 4/5 positions the Giants can reasonably be hopeful of getting average to above average play out of. Eluemunor will play as well, although nobody on the team is saying where. He's a good tackle though, and he can play/has played guard.

Better QB play fixes a lot of what was wrong with this team last year, and I think it is ultimately why you will see the Giants be aggressive in acquiring one in a few weeks in this super talented QB draft.

My second point of them drafting a WR high has similar reasoning. This is an insanely talented WR draft, and the options may be there on day 2 to acquire, if not an X receiver, another guy to add to the stable. While ideally they would get that true X, that's someone you'd have to grab at 6 this year (which is option B, if they for some reason do not get a QB). Dabs has made the best of poor WR rooms before many times. Adding someone like Malachi Corley, Xavier Legette, or even Jermaine Burton, guys that can make things happen after the catch, to a WR room with Wan'Dale Robinson, Darius Slayton, and Jalin Hyatt can definitely give you a 'good enough' WR room. Wan'Dale missed more or less the first half the season last year recovering from his ACL injury, but he looked damn good in the 2nd half of the year. Like, really good. He's someone to watch going forward, legitimately. Darius Slayton is guaranteed to produce 700 yards, 15+ YPC, and 3 TDs every year, regardless of QB talent. He's done it 4/5 years he's been with the Giants. Those aren't world beater numbers, but they are solid #2 numbers. Jalin Hyatt is a big slot with world beater speed that should have produced a ton more last year if the QBs we had throwing could have actually gotten him the ball. Watching the Giants all-22 is so frustrating in large part because of how many times he got open last year deep down the field and was either just missed or not even looked at.

The Giants defense is in decent shape. The front 7 is legit; headlined by Dexter Lawrence, Kayvon Thibodeaux is coming off a double digit sack season, we just signed Brian Burns, Bobby Okereke is a top off-ball LB in the entire NFL, and Micah McFadden is a rising star as well as an off-ball LB. The corner situation is for sure in desperate need of help, and I don't see the Giants investing draft capital in the position earlier than the 3rd round, which means you're not looking at great new contributions there. The only solace we have is that Jerome Henderson is one of the best DB coaches in the league and regularly gets way above expected play out of nobodies at that position.

The Giants roster is far from elite teams like the Eagles, Dallas, Chiefs, etc. But they are more middle of the pack, when you consider the coaching, than bottom of the barrel. The most effective, and fastest, way to fix the team is by getting one of these top QBs in this year's draft. Dabs would love to work with a big guy with a great arm and penchant for impromptu plays like Drake Maye, a sparkplug running threat with a great deep ball like Jayden Daniels, or a cerebral, young 3rd down magician like JJ (especially since he could sit a year).

 

This is a really good post.  I think it outlines a lot of stuff that i'm not necessarily completely "up on" regarding the Giants situation.

 

But it still leads me to questions about...whether Schoen and Daboll really get a second shot to fire on a QB.  Or whether this is a situation where they're kind of "locked in" to Danny Dimes and making that work.  Like, Daboll was brought in to make that pick work...which he briefly did.  To the tune that they invested a stupid big amount of the owners money in the project.

 

It's fair to wonder about his health/durability...but is it not still a situation where the "leash" these guys have earned, is from that season with Daniel Jones in the first place?  Basically under the premise that they can make things work with him if he stays healthy and the other chips fall less disastrously?

 

I still just have a really hard time wrapping my brain around the idea that ownership would be cool with them flushing $92M dollars on Danny and then giving them free rein to just try again on someone else at QB.

[minutemancl]

16 minutes ago, Tugboat said:

 

This is a really good post.  I think it outlines a lot of stuff that i'm not necessarily completely "up on" regarding the Giants situation.

 

But it still leads me to questions about...whether Schoen and Daboll really get a second shot to fire on a QB.  Or whether this is a situation where they're kind of "locked in" to Danny Dimes and making that work.  Like, Daboll was brought in to make that pick work...which he briefly did.  To the tune that they invested a stupid big amount of the owners money in the project.

 

It's fair to wonder about his health/durability...but is it not still a situation where the "leash" these guys have earned, is from that season with Daniel Jones in the first place?  Basically under the premise that they can make things work with him if he stays healthy and the other chips fall less disastrously?

 

I still just have a really hard time wrapping my brain around the idea that ownership would be cool with them flushing $92M dollars on Danny and then giving them free rein to just try again on someone else at QB.

Thanks; I don't expect anyone to know another team as well as a fan of that team does. I spend way too much time reading and watching my team (like most of us do, I imagine).

Mara gets a bad rap, but probably the best thing about him is he has no problem spending money. His wallet is always open. He fired 3 consecutive head coaches after 2 or less years each; at one point, he was paying all 3. If Schoen and Dabs say "hey, we thought Jones was the guy, but with his injury, I don't think he is anymore. But we do think Maye/Daniels/JJ can be the guy", Mara will give them the green light. Rolling with DJ another year relatovely uncontested is a backup plan. 

[Tugboat]

7 minutes ago, minutemancl said:

Thanks; I don't expect anyone to know another team as well as a fan of that team does. I spend way too much time reading and watching my team (like most of us do, I imagine).

Mara gets a bad rap, but probably the best thing about him is he has no problem spending money. His wallet is always open. He fired 3 consecutive head coaches after 2 or less years each; at one point, he was paying all 3. If Schoen and Dabs say "hey, we thought Jones was the guy, but with his injury, I don't think he is anymore. But we do think Maye/Daniels/JJ can be the guy", Mara will give them the green light. Rolling with DJ another year relatovely uncontested is a backup plan. 

This is where i still kind of have a bit of a dissonance trying to reconcile the two things.

 

On the one hand, maybe the money isn't even a big deal.  Which is great.  But on the other hand...like you said, he's basically run through coaches like crazy.  What makes this GM/Coach duo so special to not just run through them too, if not...the promising season they built around Jones at QB?

 

I'm obviously not as tuned in to the dynamics there.  But from the outside, it seems like an unusual thing, for an owner who isn't trigger shy on replacing people...to give these guys a bunch of extra leash to get a second shot on a QB basically.  Even if the money itself is...superfluous because the organization is a money printing machine no matter what.

[Danger]

I'm so glad that the Giants beat Minnesota back in January of 2023 LOL

[minutemancl]

40 minutes ago, Tugboat said:

This is where i still kind of have a bit of a dissonance trying to reconcile the two things.

 

On the one hand, maybe the money isn't even a big deal.  Which is great.  But on the other hand...like you said, he's basically run through coaches like crazy.  What makes this GM/Coach duo so special to not just run through them too, if not...the promising season they built around Jones at QB?

 

I'm obviously not as tuned in to the dynamics there.  But from the outside, it seems like an unusual thing, for an owner who isn't trigger shy on replacing people...to give these guys a bunch of extra leash to get a second shot on a QB basically.  Even if the money itself is...superfluous because the organization is a money printing machine no matter what.

The bolded relates to what Mara has gotten rightfully knocked for- he is too loyal. After Ernie Accorsi retired, he hired Jerry Reese (internal hire). When he got fired, he replaced him with the guy he knew who was already here before in Dave Gettleman. The Joe Schoen hire was significant because it was the first external Giants GM hire since George Young, who turned the franchise around decades ago. He's also had more success in 2 years than Gettleman ever had and more than Jerry Reese had since the early '10s. It could absolutely be misplaced trust, but there's good reason to believe in Schoen's vision for the team. 

[minutemancl]

13 minutes ago, Danger said:

I'm so glad that the Giants beat Minnesota back in January of 2023 LOL

Did you know the Eagles have 1 more playoff win than the Giants in the last 5 years?

[minutemancl]

Important to note that none of that guarantees any level of success, obviously. It doesn't mean they've made, or will make, the right decisions. Just giving context on why I have faith in the Giants FO and coaching staff as is. 

[Danger]

26 minutes ago, minutemancl said:

Did you know the Eagles have 1 more playoff win than the Giants in the last 5 years?

Yeah and y'all drafted Daniel Jones 6th overall and hired Joe judge as a head coach lmao