The NFL Combine is here! Exciting time of year, and I wanted to share a few guys I have circled that The Giants should be looking at to land in this draft. I purposely left out the big 4 (Neal, Kayvon, Hutchenson, Ekwonu) and all the offensive line prospects. Because obviously we should be looking at them. In my opinion they are the top players in this draft – not necessarily in that order. The Giants can really go in any direction they choose in terms of trading back or staying put. So Here is a list of a few players the Giants should be looking at as first round talent.
I want to start with a couple edge guys the Giants could be looking to land in the first round. This draft can go so many different ways that they should not be ruling out really any position group in the first round. So First up will be David Ojabo an edge rusher out of Michigan. He played opposite Hutchinson and was a big reason their defensive-line was viewed as the best in college football last season. He is 6-5 250 and versatile. He is fast off the edge and allows looking for those strip sacks – reminds me of Justin Tuck when he comes off the edge. He is very good at containing the run and progressed greatly as the season went along. He did only play 20 games during his college career so, evaluating where he is at in terms of being pro-ready will be crucial if The Giants decide to move back to try and land him or even take him with the seventh pick.
The next Edge rusher I will be looking closely at is George Karlaftis. This is someone who already has the size on an NFL edge rusher at 6-4 275 pounds and we will find out that he is long. He is essentially the polar opposite of Ojabo, very good at pass rushing and significantly more fundamentally sound with initial punches. His biggest red flag is definitly his ability to play the run game. Karlaftis is most definitly a straight edge rusher, but in a scheme link Wink’s where so many people are in the box on a given play, that may not be too huge a factor.
Next I am going to go to a couple positions that people may not want to hear about. I will start with corner backs. Yes, we have a deep room. But we also have a crap-load of money going to Adoree Jackson and James Bradberry. If we are to back-load Bradberrys contract instead of cutting or trading him(Which Schoen basically already said he wasn’t going to do) than we will more than likely cut Jackson next offseason. There are a couple guys the Giants can look to grab and my first option would be Sauce Gardner out of Cincinnati. Sauce was a lockdown corner for Cincinnati all year and played very well against top competition like Alabama in the College Playoffs. Sauce has the upside to be a true number one corner in this league and I really believe he may be a step down from Bradberry this year, but in two years Gardner will be the better corner and getting paid 90% less money. Sauce is a long skinny athletic freak at 6-3 200 pounds.
The next corner I will talk about is Derek Stingly Jr. out of LSU. Stingly has a ceiling just like Gardners, he could be a true number one corner in just a few years in the NFL. Stingly has incredible hands to grab those 50/50 balls and has incredible athleticism to stay with receiver while turning his hips. Stingly’s tape is not exactly great due to him only playing 10 games in the last couple of seasons. In my opinion, he seemed to have given up at the end of the season. I view Stingly as a major red flag due to lack of consistency, but he is someone I could see Schoen taking a chance on if they move back far enough.
This next player is going to be a middle linebacker. I do think The Giants and Blake Martinez will work out a deal to keep him on this roster. But assuming the Giants do not bring back Jaylon Smith or they do end up cutting or trading Martinez; I would love to see Nakobe Dean out of Georgia come in to man the middle of this defense. Recent mock drafts have him going in the late first round. That is absolutely absurd – after this combine he will jump. Dean is a 6 foot 225 genius who was orchestrating everything for the Georgia Bulldogs this season which may have been the best college defense I have ever seen. He shoots gaps hard in run game and will try to take anyone’s head off that he meets in the whole. Having him learn from Blake Martinez for a year or two would be absolutely incredible and he could be in the middle of this defense for years to come.
Basically, I think we should be looking at all the offensive line and defensive prospect to potentially land in the first round. This next month or so is going to be very interesting to see what Joe Schoen and Company decides to do.
A Fan With A Mic 