Lions’ Golladay high on Giants’ wish list
Wide receiver and edge rusher. Two premier positions where the Giants don’t have a premier player. Two positions the Giants will shop when the free-agent negotiating period opens at noon today.
“It’s not like we don’t realize what we need,” GM Dave Gettleman said last week. “There is a draft, right? So, you don’t necessarily have to buy them both,” he said of the two positions. “We’re just going to see how it plays out, see what guys are worth and what the costs are.”
The question, then, is who will the Giants pursue this week, and at what cost?
At receiver, the Detroit Lions’ Kenny Golladay, 27, is the clear cream of this year’s crop with the Bears’ Allen Robinson and the Bucs’ Chris Godwin franchise tagged.
The Giants are intrigued by the 6-foot-4 Golladay and well aware they need a big-bodied No. 1. So expect a number with a “201” area code to light up the phone of Golladay’s agent.
At edge, the Steelers’ Bud Dupree, 28, is an elite player coming off a Week 12 ACL tear. The Giants need pass-rush presence and reliability on the outside.
Dupree is where their search should start, especially if his injury helps the Giants avoid overpaying, which is often the cost of doing business for players of that caliber.
In-house, the Giants still need to sign franchise-tagged defensive end Leonard Williams to a long-term contract by 4 p.m. Wednesday to free cap space for their spending. There was no progress with Williams this past the weekend. The clock is ticking.
Don’t expect Dave Gettleman and Joe Judge to go for broke on Golladay if competition drives the price sky high, though. And without any other true No. 1s on the market, expect them to explore all depth options to supplement a potential premium receiver draft pick in April.
The Giants are the kind of team, for example, that should find out what the Patriots’ price is in a trade for N’Keal Harry, 23, a 2019 firstround pick when Judge was New England’s receivers coach. They should call the Raiders and ask if 2020 first-round pick Henry Ruggs, 22, is still in the plans of fickle head coach Jon Gruden.
The Steelers’ JuJu Smith-Schuster, 24, frankly could be a great addition to the Giants’ roster, as well, as long as he doesn’t cost No.1 receiver money. But if he can’t get top dollar, it’s also possible he’ll just return to Pittsburgh.
The Titans’ Corey Davis, 26, and Panthers’ Curtis Samuel, 24, are options with Giants ties. Davis played in Tennessee with Giants safety Logan Ryan, an active recruiter; Samuel hails from Brooklyn’s
Erasmus Hall and was a Gettleman second-round pick in 2017.
But Davis and Samuel are only complementary pieces, not No. 1 receivers, and they’d only be worth adding at a discount with the understanding the Giants were going to draft a wideout with their No. 11 overall pick, too.
Regarding the draft, the good news for the Giants is that it appears four quarterbacks could be selected in the top eight picks: Clemson’s
Trevor Lawrence, BYU’s Zach Wilson, Ohio State’s Justin Fields and North Dakota State’s Trey Lance.
This should push at least one of the top four receivers down to the Giants, if not more. Even if Florida tight end Kyle Pitts and LSU wideout Ja’Marr Chase go in the top 10, for example, Alabama’s DeVonta Smith or Jaylen Waddle would give the Giants game-changing speed.
Gettleman and Judge talk often about how it’s important that a player doesn’t just run fast but plays fast. Smith and Waddle both play fast and are more than impressive 40-yard dash times.
If the best player available at No. 11 isn’t a receiver and the Giants take an edge, corner, linebacker or offensive lineman, they could still seek value at wideout in a later round.
Golladay and the Bears’ Robinson were originally second and third-round picks, respectively. Instead of signing Golladay, the Giants could just try to draft the next one instead: maybe Senior Bowl standout Dez Fitzpatrick (Louisville), for example.
New Giants senior personnel executive Kyle O’Brien helped the Jaguars and Lions draft Robinson and Golladay, respectively. And Gettleman found the Giants’ Darius Slayton in the fifth round in 2018. So that’s an option the Giants wouldn’t run from, either.
If Judge is keen on adding any veteran experience to his depth, Saints cap casualty Emmanuel Sanders, 33, won a Super Bowl in Denver with Giants receivers coach Tyke Tolbert.
At edge, meanwhile, if Dupree isn’t in the cards for Big Blue, perhaps the Cardinals’ Haason Reddick, the Lions’ Romeo Okwara (a former Giant), or the Rams’ Leonard Floyd is more their speed, instead. Reddick has been connected often to the Giants as a fit recently, but he also played at Temple in college for Panthers head coach Matt Rhule.
The Giants should address their edge in the draft, too, though, and no one jumps off the tape faster than Georgia’s Azeez Ojulari.
The Bulldogs’ pass rusher is only 20 years old, but Ojulari has tantalizing traits, and Gettleman has taken at least one Georgia player in all three of his Giants’ drafts (four in all).
This is a good example of why it is no sure thing that the Giants draft a receiver at No. 11. Best player available there could mean edge, corner (Alabama’s Patrick Surtain II), offensive line (Northwestern tackle Rashawn Slater), you name it.