Florio: Giants Should Be Looking To Trade Down From No. 4 Pick In Draft

Now that the Super Bowl has come and gone, teams around the league can really start looking forward to the NFL draft.

The Giants will have pick No. 4 in the first round after they went 4-12 during a season that ultimately ended with Pat Shurmur losing his job. There are a couple quarterbacks projected to go in the area around the fourth pick, so there has been some suggestion that the team might opt to trade that pick.

On Thursday, NBC/ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio joined Joe Benigno and John Jastremski (in for Evan Roberts) on WFAN. Florio is one of those people who thinks Big Blue could end up trading down.

“Depending on how the first three picks play out, if there’s still a quarterback there, if Tua (Tagovailoa) is still there at four, and everyone expects him to go to the Dolphins at five, that’s where you open things up for somebody who wants to spring up and get Tua,” said Florio. “Anytime you can take that one lottery ticket at No. 4 and parlay it into more opportunities to pick guys who, if you do the right thing and make the right decision, are going to become contributors for you … I would be looking to trade down if I was the Giants.”

The Giants don’t need a quarterback after they took Daniel Jones with the sixth overall pick in last year’s draft. Jones showed signs as a rookie that he can develop into the team’s franchise QB, and trading down to allow another franchise to grab Tagovailoa could net Dave Gettleman assets to help with other parts of his team that need fixing.

If things do turn out as Florio describes, it would make the Dolphin’s late-season wins in 2019 a bit costly. Miami was expected to be picking higher in the first round, and they have been mentioned as a destination for Tagovailoa for a while now.

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Florio also spoke about the new collective bargaining agreement that had just been approved by the NFL’s owners. The proposed CBA reportedly includes expansion of the regular season and the playoffs, but Florio thinks those expansions are just a “stopover” before even more expansion.

“I just feel like that’s where it’s headed. 14 playoffs teams is a stopover to 16 in the next labor deal, in the next round of TV broadcasting contracts after the one that’s coming up, just like I feel that 17 regular season games is a stopover to 18. I just think it’s inevitable that we’re heading to 16 playoff teams.”

Florio says the league is making the changes partially so that more teams are playing meaningful games at the end of the year.

“They want all 32 teams to be alive as late as possible into the regular season. And one way to do that: expand the playoffs.”