New York Giants top-5 second round draft targets
By Ed Stein
3. Grant Delpit, safety, Louisiana State University Tigers
To be fair, I love Grant Delpit for the New York Giants. I had Big Blue selecting him in both my trade and no-trade seven-round mock drafts.
He’s a monster playing downhill against both the short pass and run. Delpit is equally comfortable playing in either man coverage or zone, which will endear him to Giants DC Patrick Graham. Big Blue fans will love his physicality and hard hits. With those skills, why is he still available?
Delpit may hit hard, but he has some tackling issues. The former college national champion takes poor angles to the ball carrier and doesn’t wrap up well. Fortunately, those are both skills that can be taught. Now that Antoine Bethea is gone, Delpit is an excellent replacement to be Jabrill Peppers‘ partner in the deep secondary.
2. Yetur Gross-Matos, edge, Penn State Nittany Lions
It’s a mild surprise that Yetur Gross-Matos is still available. It never occurred to me that he would be an option for New York unless they traded back into the first round. The Penn State edge rusher was a big riser in many mock drafts, some even writing that he was the second-best pass rusher in this draft class.
The Penn State product is explosive off the ball. YGM puts tackles in a bad spot almost immediately with a quick first step. He is then strong enough to power past them. Finally, Gross-Matos is fast around the edge with good acceleration to close on the ball in the backfield.
Also, YGM is versatile. The Nittany Lions used him quite often at nose tackle last year. That kept him from putting up Chase Young-like sack totals. Even playing almost half the season out of position, he still ended up with nine sacks. The Giants could line him up at several different spots to put more heat on the opposition.
"There is a lot to like about Gross-Matos’ skill set translating to the NFL. He has excellent length and plays with very good leverage that he uses to get off blocks… Gross-Matos is dangerous pass-rusher. He has nice club move, using his strength to knock tackles off balance. – Charlie Campbell, Walter Football"