If you go watch the various videos of Big Blue's brass calling their newly-minted draft picks, you had to at least chuckle at Wisconsin LB Ryan Connelly, who had the muted excitement of someone who just won a $100 scratch-off at a Secaucus gas station.
There were a few funky phone calls recorded from Pat Shurmur to his new troops, which could be explained away as a prank from a practical joker. Except these calls were recorded and orchestrated by the Giants, and splashed across Giants.com. About the only thing that went right from each introductory call was the placement of the Van Heusen logo on the top left of the screen.
It was all part of a surreal draft for the G-Men, who took Daniel Jones at No. 6 - a player who completed 59.9 percent of his passes in college, whom Todd McShay had rated as the 59th-best player in the NFL Draft, and whom no one saw sliding off the board as early as he did. Even Dave Gettleman's assertion that the Giants had to pick Jones at No. 6 to two other teams who planned to pluck him - namely the Broncos and Redskins - has been questioned by ProFootballTalk. The Broncos, for one, were never interested in Jones, and instead took Drew Lock, with the 42nd pick. Washington, of course, took the QB the Giants should have: Dwayne Haskins.
Pundits also wondered why the Giants took Dexter Lawrence so high (No. 17) when the Clemson DT would had been suspended for PED use - and missed the team's semifinal win over Notre Dame and national championship game against Alabama - and likely would have been around in the second round. Few understand why the G-Men also traded back into the first round for a third time when this draft was deeper than a coal mine.
We also don't know why the Giants drafted three cornerbacks. And if they didn't have enough bad karma of their own making, they just suffered some awful luck by learning that their last CB drafted, Corey Ballentine, was injured during a shooting in Topeka, Kansas, which tragically killed Ballentine's Washburn teammate, Dwayne Simmons.
While writing this piece my Android buzzed with an update from CBSSports HQ Daily. The headline reads, "Besides Dave Gettleman and the Giants, here's who were losers at the NFL Draft."
Indeed, Gettleman has become the emblem of this roster - for all his gaseous monologues, all his cliches and contradictions. It's not enough that he loves to lecture our media on football in a Boston accent. He tells us he can't draft for need, then drafts for need. He didn't sign Odell Beckham Jr. to trade him, then trades him. He told us he watched Dwayne Haskins play in the Big 12 Championship. (Ohio State is in the Big 10.) For the Pollyanna who keeps flexing his finger at Saquon Barkley, remember that the Giants RB had perhaps the best rookie season ever for a halfback, and the club still went 5-11.
All year we knew a major NYC sports team would have a bad year and position itself to draft a star from Duke. We just thought it was the Knicks, with adoring eyes placed on Zion Williamson. We do know that the Gettleman's career hangs on his top pick, whom he said he loved after watching the Senior Bowl.
Funny thing about that. Guess who were the last three MVPs of the Senior Bowl? Davis Webb, Kyle Lauletta, and...Daniel Jones.
It's not that the Giants picked a QB right away; it's who they picked and who picked him. There's the hint of nepotism, with the Manning brothers learning at the altar of Jones's head coach, David Cutcliffe. There's the reality that a Duke QB has never been drafted in the first round. There's the head-scratching reality that no Duke QB has starred in the NFL. In fact, it's hard to think of any Duke player at any position who thrived in the league. (Dave Brown - who went 26-34 in the NFL? Ross Cockrell - who's played for three teams in four years?)
USA Today rated every team's draft, and you can guess which team rated last. The New York "Football" Giants were 32nd, with a grade of D-. In their summary, the site concludes, "Only the benefit of the doubt precludes an F for Gettleman and Co." That benefit lasts until Daniel Jones takes the field this year. Unless Gettleman - who lauded the "Kansas City Model" - sticks with his newfound love for the "Green Bay Model" and keeps Daniels on the bench for three years, comparing Eli Manning to Brett Favre and Daniel Jones to Aaron Rodgers.
