New York Giants: G-Men screwed up more than just the 6th pick
By Ed Stein
Number 17
In between pick six and pick 17 a few interesting things happened. The Jacksonville Jaguars were rewarded by the football gods for ending the Blake Bortles era this winter by having Allen fall into their laps at number seven. Defensive tackle Ed Oliver dropped down to Buffalo at nine. Washington at 15 picked up Ohio State quarterback Dwayne Haskins who had been linked to the Giants since the end of last season.
Everyone could tell Haskins was ticked off by what the Giants did to him (selecting Jones). He wanted to play at Metlife Stadium. He’ll get his chance to play there once per season, and stick it to the G-Men in the process. In a not so veiled shot at New York’s NFC team, he said the league “messed up” by letting him fall to 15th. If that were the end of the story, maybe I could eventually accept it.
With the 16th pick, Carolina selected the second-best edge rushing linebacker in this draft Brian Burns. The Panthers probably saved Gettleman more scrutiny by taking the Florida State product off the board.
Now the New York Giants are on the clock. There is one more of the pre-draft highly rated defensive ends on the board, Montez Sweat. At the combine, he was diagnosed with a heart condition. That scared off many teams. Apparently, the NFL doctors got it wrong as the league posted an article, just after 1 pm Thursday, saying Sweat was misdiagnosed.
Goodell steps to the podium and announces the New York Giants have selected defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence of Clemson. What in the world just happened? Gettleman had a chance to take a pass rusher the team desperately needs since the trade of Olivier Vernon to Cleveland. At the very least, he should have taken a left tackle to protect his investment in Jones.
Lawrence is a good player, and built like the Incredible Hulk at 6-3, 315 pounds. But he was drafted by the Giants much earlier than he should have gone. Especially with Sweat still available, let alone tackles Andre Dillard and Jawaan Taylor. Does anyone in their front office know what the word value means? The G-Men already have Dalvin Tomlinson and B.J. Hill who can play inside in James Bettcher’s 3-4 defense.
They certainly could have picked up some bulk later in the draft. By that point, I had enough of the draft. Unfortunately, the saga continued.