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With the No. 25 pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, the New York Giants select …
Well, judging from the past 10 years, the Giants will get a player who might be really good, more likely will be pretty good, could be no more than serviceable or might not be much good at all.
No. 25 does not look like a draft spot where a player will blossom into a star, but using the past decade as a guide, there is hope the Giants can find a wide receiver or cornerback — two areas of need — to come in and develop into a solid starter. Every draft is different, though, and it only takes one prescient selection to make everyone in the draft room look smart.
This year’s class is not considered to be strong, with a shortage of players having first-round grades. That means the latter stages of the first round will include players with second-round grades, which is not ideal. This could lead to more trade-backs than usual.
For some reason, the No. 25 selection is the sweet spot for teams to look elsewhere. In the past six drafts, that pick was traded.
What sort of player might the Giants get Thursday night if they stay where they are? Here is a look at who has been taken at that spot in the past 10 years:
2022: C Tyler Linderbaum, Iowa — Ravens
What we have here is a budding star. Linderbaum started all 17 games as a rookie, and graded out as the sixth-best center in the league according to Pro Football Focus. Sure, teams can find a solid center in the later rounds, but what is wrong with adding a stud this early in the draft to anchor the offensive line, if the player performs up to his lofty draft status?
2021: RB Travis Etienne, Clemson — Jaguars
A foot injury cost Etienne his entire rookie year. Made his NFL debut in 2022 by rushing for 1,125 yards and catching 35 passes. He might not be able to carry the load by himself, but could be part of a formidable backfield combination.
2020: WR Brandon Aiyuk, Arizona State — 49ers
There has been excellent development here (in a very sophisticated passing scheme), leading to a 78-catch, 1,015-yard, eight touchdown breakthrough in 2022. This guy could be a No. 1 target.
2019: WR Marquise Brown, Oklahoma — Ravens
Hooray for Hollywood? Brown was the first receiver off the board in his draft, and he clearly has talent — 91 receptions in 2021. He was traded to the Cardinals during last year’s draft and continued to play well, catching 67 passes for 709 yards before a foot injury ended his season after 12 games.
2018: TE Hayden Hurst, South Carolina — Ravens
What’s with the Ravens and all these No. 25 picks? Hurst has bounced around from the Ravens to the Falcons to the Bengals, and is established as a serviceable No. 2 tight end.
2017: S Jabrill Peppers, Michigan — Browns
Here is another well-traveled, still-young player (27). Peppers has moved from the Browns to the Giants to the Patriots. It looked as if he had something cooking with the Giants, but he tore his ACL in 2021 before moving on. He appears to be sort of a tweener defensive back who lacks the versatility to make it big.
2016: CB Artie Burns, Miami — Steelers
The Steelers gave up on him after four seasons, and Burns then signed with the Bears. He played last season with the Seahawks and has gone unsigned as a free agent this offseason. He has not been a full-time starter and does not have an interception since 2017.
2015: LB Shaq Thompson, Washington — Panthers
Good player. Thompson has been a reliable, consistent ball-seeking defender for eight years in Carolina, and is coming off a career-best 135-tackle season.
2014: CB Jason Verrett, TCU — Chargers
He made the Pro Bowl in his second season and appeared on the way to big things, but injuries wrecked his progress. During one four-year period, Verrett played in just six games. He was not in the league last season.
2013: CB Xavier Rhodes, Florida State — Vikings
Rhodes was a legitimate starting cornerback for seven years in Minnesota before moving on to the Colts and Bills. He made one Pro Bowl (2016).
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It’s natural to look at the landscape in the NFC East and wonder which coach-quarterback relationship will last the longest: Brian Daboll-Daniel Jones or Nick Sirianni-Jalen Hurts?
In the here and now, it is difficult to imagine the Giants’ duo having the shelf life of the power couple in Philadelphia.
The Eagles’ ascent has been swift. They came within a few plays of winning the Super Bowl in Hurts’ second full season as a starter. He went from an interesting prospect to a franchise player in the blink of an eye, which is why the Eagles preemptively locked up Hurts with a mammoth five-year, $255 million deal ($179.4 million guaranteed) with one year left on his rookie contract.
This has been the Eagles’ way: Identify the players they are sure they want to build around and get them secured a year early rather than wait until a decision has to be made.
“That’s hard to do,’’ Eagles general manager Howie Roseman said recently. “You’re doing it a year early. You obviously have the tag. You have all these things at your disposal. And [Hurts] recognizing that this was the best thing to do for this team and this franchise, just him doing that and him trusting us to do a deal that made sense on both sides, he deserves a tremendous amount of credit.’’
Now comes the harder part, for Hurts and also for Jones, who signed a four-year deal worth $160 million ($82 million guaranteed).
Both young quarterbacks — Jones is 25, Hurts 24 — now have to live up to the big bucks their teams shelled out for them.
For the Eagles, this was not much of a reach. Hurts was an MVP candidate in 2022 and his upside is obvious and enormous. On the other hand, there are many outside the Giants organization who question why the team was convinced Jones is the answer and wonder whether he will ever be able to play up to the level of the financial investment in him.
Both are terrific athletes. Hurts was fourth in the NFL among quarterbacks in rushing in 2022 with 760 yards and first by a wide margin with 13 rushing touchdowns. Jones was fifth in rushing yards (708) and tied for third, with Josh Allen of the Bills, with seven rushing touchdowns.
Being dual threats, though, raises questions about how each team plans to protect its investment.
Hurts earned his mega-deal by throwing his body all across the field. Is that sustainable?
“Here’s what I definitely wasn’t doing, [saying,] ‘Jalen is on a rookie contract. I’m just going to be reckless and do whatever we want with him,’’’ Sirianni said. “We were very careful. I know he’s gotten injured, but we didn’t pay him more to do less. I’ll say that.
“Will we still think about how to protect him? Yeah, because that’s our job to protect our quarterback. But Jalen does a lot of things really well, and we want to utilize the skills that he has so he can continue to play at a high level.’’
Similarly, as soon as Jones signed off on his deal, there were queries as to how the Giants plan on keeping him healthy. Does he have to run less frequently and absorb fewer hits?
Giants general manager Joe Schoen was in Buffalo’s front office when the Bills selected Allen, and watched as Allen developed into a star and got paid like it, signing a six-year contract worth $258 million. Allen, an aggressive and at times reckless runner, realizes he has to become more judicious with his legs.
“I’m getting older,’’ Allen said recently. “I can’t continue to do this … I’m gonna have to learn to adapt and change.’
Allen, drafted a year before Jones, is only 26, but understands the balance he must find..
Players get paid more and are expected to do more.
Hurts and Jones are so skilled moving the ball with their legs that they are not going to suddenly purge that from their games, but both will have to learn how to do more while doing less to put themselves in harm’s way.
Here are two questions that have come up recently that we will attempt to answer as accurately as possible:
The Giants have 10 picks in this year’s NFL Draft. Are they going to use all of them?
It seems the Giants do not need to add 10 rookies. Last year, they added 11 players in the 2022 draft because they were building from the ground up in the first year of the Schoen-Daboll program, salary-cap space was scarce and it was necessary to bring in as much inexpensive young talent as possible.
That is not the case this year.
The Giants had more money to spend in free agency to fortify the roster, and the competition to make the team figures to be more challenging this time around. Schoen has seven picks on Saturday in Rounds 4-7, including two picks in the fifth round and three in the seventh round. It will come as no surprise if Schoen tries to trade up during this draft and 10 picks become nine or eight.
We know Saquon Barkley has not signed his franchise tender. Have other players signed their franchise tenders?
At this point, no. Six players in the NFL were hit with the franchise tag: Barkley, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, Cowboys running back Tony Pollard, Jaguars tight end Evan Engram, Raiders running back Josh Jacobs and Commanders defensive tackle Daron Payne.
The only financial movement among these players was the four-year, $90 million contract Payne signed to stay in Washington. The other five players will have to play on the one-year tender unless they can come to agreements with their teams on long-term deals. They have until July 17 to make this happen. Some might, but it is not likely to happen for all five.
The Giants have no offer on the table for Barkley, and signing a multi-year contract now appears less likely than not.
Players such as Barkley — and Barkley is no exception — usually despise the franchise tag. Until the players association can find a way to remove it from the collective bargaining agreement, it will remain and players will continue to be frustrated with it.