If you weren't squatting before a television during the NFL Draft, the CBS Sports app provided live coverage, along with a grade after each selection.
So when Big Blue made their Big Pick at No. 6, plucking Duke QB Daniel Jones, the name popped up on the app, while Pete Prisco gave it a D-minus as in dumb. In fact, Prisco wrote he wanted to give the move an F.
Not only did the pick arch eyebrows and baffle pundits and provoke talk show hosts, it feels more than ever like the Giants are clueless and headless, lost in the cold wet swamp around MetLife Stadium. They picked a player no one had rated that high, a QB most mock drafts had fifth-best, from a school not known for football. Indeed, the only surefire first-round picks leaving Durham this spring were Zion Williamson and R.J. Barrett.
The only unfair knock on Giants GM Dave Gettleman is the placement of the pick. If you think your franchise QB for the next decade is available, you take him whenever you can. The problem is not the placement; the problem is the player he picked. In fact, longtime ESPN draft analyst Todd McShay labels Jones as a backup in the NFL.
All of us - even those who are not Giants fans - wanted the club to bag Dwayne Haskins, who threw 50 touchdowns in the Big Ten last year. Jones looks like a cozy pick, a family favor to the Mannings and their mentor, Duke coach David Cutcliffe. There's a reason a Duke quarterback has never been picked in the first round of the NFL Draft. Consider Big Blue's other twirl with a Duke QB picked in the first round of the Supplemental Draft -- Dave Brown -- who hardly reminded folks of Y.A. Tittle.
Part of the reason Giants fans are so cynical over the Jones pick is the man who picked. Gettleman has babbled out of both sides of his mouth since he took the gig. He told us he didn't sign Odell Beckham to trade him, then traded him. He's fawned over Eli Manning like he's the same player who conquered the 18-0 Patriots, then just drafted his successor. He tells us you don't draft by need, then drafts by need. He belches bromides about culture and the type of player that makes a good Giant, yet never tells us what that means. If you listened to his stumbling presser after the pick, he was all over the place, saying he fell in love with Jones after a few series at the Senior Bowl. He gushed over the "Kansas City Model" leading up to the draft, then drooled over the "Green Bay Model" last night. (He also said Haskins played in the "Big 12.")
Gettleman is funny and occasionally charming, a self-anointed "Mensch" whose hoarse voice muses over a range of topics. He seems to operate in his own conversational bubble, often his biggest fan, wholly satisfied with the latest cliche or parable he sold the media and masses. He sounds like a dial-up football lifer who can't navigate this wifi world. Or maybe he knows something we don't. If he doesn't like the question, he tells Kim Jones that "You never know" or that "Rome wasn't built in a day."
No matter what we think, Gettleman's career pivots on this pick. If Jones shocks us and blossoms into a stud, we will race to our social media accounts and delete all the invectives we hurled at the G-Men's GM. If Jones remains the fifth-best QB in this draft, then Gettleman will be gone before they get to pick Jones's replacement.
There have been myriad quarterbacks who emerged from the bowels of the draft to become Hall of Famers, most notably Tom Brady, who grew from sixth-round runt whose 40-yard-dash you could time with a sundial, into the most accomplished QB in pro football history. Brady's NFL hero, Joe Montana, was drafted in the third round. So was Russell Wilson.
The Giants fan is saddled with the twin burdens of recent incompetence while watching the Jets make unusually sound moves, two divergent NFL ships who share a stadium but not the same sentiment from their fans. The Jets may have gotten the best player on the board in Quinnen Williams, a player pundits already speak of in breathless reverence. The Giants took a football player from a basketball school to play the most important position in team sports.
The Giants also picked Dexter Lawrence, a DT from Clemson, and Deandre Baker a CB from Georgia. You won't care if Daniel Jones turns into Dave Brown. You still won't care if he turns into Eli Manning. But at least you'll be happy. For now, we have countless Giants fans in gasping disbelief over a team that seems stuck in 1979, with no George Young around to save it.
Twitter: @JasonKeidel
