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The 2021 NFL draft season is a wonderful time for players, teams such as the New York Giants, and fans: think of it like Christmas in spring. Everyone is hopeful, there are few, if any, injuries to worry about, and every team is able to get just a little better and grab a gift for themselves from under the tree.
Best of all, the waiting brings up some of the most incredible fan theories about what their favorite team is going to do — some of the best memories of opening gifts are the rattling of the box, the guessing game of what's inside.
So let's rattle our gifts, shall we? What presents will the Giants and their fans be presented with this year? Let's take a few guesses:
Giants NFL draft:
1. More hog-mollies incoming
Whether it's one of the big three (Penei Sewell, Rashawn Slater, and Alijah Vera-Tucker) in the first round, or someone else later, Giants fans will be getting some hog-mollies coming to the team this offseason.
Dave Gettleman loves his offensive linemen, and one defining aspect of his reign as GM has been his doubling down of the importance of the line. He's right of course — the line is the beating heart of any offense, and the Giants have had a diseased one that has only just shown signs of life.
Andrew Thomas is developing nicely, but with Zeitler gone, there's already a gaping hole in the middle of what's one of the more lackluster lines in the NFL. Expect the Giants to fix those issues over the weekend.
2. Defense first
Everyone is expecting the Giants to turbocharge their offense in some way with the 11th overall pick, either with one of the aforementioned hog-mollies or one of the draft's prodigious pass catchers.
Here's the thing: while the offensive line will be addressed at some point during the draft, this crop of rookies is arguably deepest with linemen. The Giants will be able to find quality vale as late as the third round. As for their weapons, their receiving corps is already plenty dangerous, with newcomers Kenny Golladay and Kyle Rudolph adding much-needed juice. As for the ground game, Saquon Barkley is still Saquon Barkley.
No, expect the Giants to turn their highly underrated 2020 defense to 11. Gettleman scouted defense well, and Joe Judge, like any Bill Belichick acolyte, knows the power of a good defense. Expect one of Micah Parsons, Patrick Surtain II, or Jaycee Horn to go to New York in the first round.
3. Boring value
So, let's be honest: the New York Giants, outside of brand recognition, are among the most boring day-to-day franchises in the NFL. Even their two most recent Super Bowl wins were classic New York: bruising, efficient, and damned hard to watch before the end.
Their draft strategy year-to-year follows that trend. Even with the addition of Saquon Barkley, he was kind of the no-brainer pick that year. The real craziness would have happened if New York had taken Eli Manning's heir, either with Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, or Sam Darnold.
Good lord, even the heir that they ended up choosing looks like just an actor hired to play Eli Manning. How vanilla could you get?
So don't expect anything spectacular. There won't be a crazy trade, Daniel Jones will still be the quarterback, and Kyle Pitts won't be coming to New York. This is a buttoned up, respectable, safe team every year in the draft, and with a guy named Joe Judge at the helm, they're probably going to stay that way.
