New York Giants GM Dave Gettleman blows another draft

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Matt Peart, University of Connecticut. (Photo by Don Juan Moore/Getty Images) /

Later draft

I was prepared to go to bed happy Friday night. McKinney was a steal at 34. I had even come to terms with the fact that the third-round pick was gone in a bad trade for Leonard Williams (more on him later). The G-Men still had a supplementary pick at the end of the third round because they lost Landon Collins as a free agent last spring (another casualty of Gettleman’s ego).

Then the Giants GM screwed it up again by drafting offensive tackle Matt Peart from Connecticut with the 99th overall pick. An error of mammoth proportions. The objection doesn’t necessarily have to do with Peart as a player. He has a chance to be a decent player in a few years.

He wasn’t a wrong choice to groom as a tackle of the future. Again Gettleman failed to read the market. Peart was a mid-fourth-to-early fifth-round round pick. Read his Combine profile at NFL.com. If it was a weather report, Peart would be, meh with a chance of maybe.

Their fifth-round pick, Oregon guard Shane Lemieux (150), was almost as bad. The Oregon guard is a mauler who can manhandle big men. Unfortunately, he has the mobility of a fence post, who many had as a sixth-to-seventh round pick at best. Big Blue needed an edge rusher and a center. Instead, two players who should have been Giants went to Dallas, center Tyler Biadasz (146 in a trade-up), and edge rusher, Bradlee Anae (179).

I have to take something back. Gettleman may not have misread the market. He’s guiltier of a bigger offense. Gettleman doesn’t care what the market is. The GM thinks he’s so much smarter than everyone else, that he will take, who he wants, when he wants, regardless of value. GMDG likes his hog mollies, everyone knows it. When will he swallow his ego long enough to get appropriate value for the picks he makes?

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Speaking of Gettleman’s ego, it hasn’t been more evident than with his man-crush on Leonard Williams. It’s why he waited until the sixth round to take anything that resembled an edge rusher. This might be one of the most disappointing drafts, in terms of what could have been, that I can remember (and I remember the 1978 draft).

Let me make this perfectly clear so I’m not misunderstood. With the exception of Shane Lemieux, (a ridiculously bad pick) and Xavier McKinney (even a blind squirrel eventually stumbles over an acorn), I don’t have a problem with any of the players NYG drafted. I have a problem with where they were drafted and who was unnecessarily passed up.

Next. How a canceled season impacts the Knicks draft. dark

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