CLOSE QUARTERS
NFL Combine gives Giants’ GM chance to check out young QBs
For the first time in 12 years, the Giants embark on this critical investigative phase with a new chief detective leading the examination. The NFL Scouting Combine is always an important step in the NFL draft process but this year, with Dave Gettleman at the controls and the No. 2 overall pick at his disposal, it is more vital than ever the Giants get it right.
Gettleman, new head coach Pat Shurmur, his newly assembled staff, all the Giants scouts and medical personnel will be in Indianapolis for five days this week, tasked with sorting through the 300 or so players to identify those who best fit their new offensive and defensive systems and grade highest in Gettleman’s new evaluation formula. Between now and April 26, Gettleman will start reshaping the roster in free agency, and those hits and misses will determine the course of action in the draft.
“You evaluate your club, you turn around and have a plan for free agency,’’ Gettleman said last month. “The goal in free agency is to set yourself up so you can take the best player available in the draft, that’s the way you operate. It doesn’t always work that way but that’s what you want. You don’t want to be in a position where you have to draft ‘a’ whatever it is.’’
Starting Tuesday, teams can interview running backs (hello, Saquon Barkley of Penn State) and offensive linemen — bet the house the Giants will get help for their offensive line early in this year’s draft. Wednesday will be another big day for the Giants, as they can schedule 15minute meetings with all the top quarterback prospects: Josh Rosen of UCLA, Sam Darnold of USC, Josh Allen of Wyoming, Baker Mayfield of Oklahoma and Lamar Jackson of Louisville.
How the Giants, coming off a 3-13 season, view their own quarterback situation — 37-year-old Eli Manning as the presumptive starter and Davis Webb entering his second year — combined with this rare draft perch — they haven’t selected this high in 37 years, when with the second-overall pick they took Lawrence Taylor in 1981 — will determine what happens next.
Figuring out the next great quarterback has never been more challenging, given the spread offenses commonly used in college.
“Here’s the problem, the college game, for the most part, is very different from ours,’’ Gettleman said. “That’s No. 1. No. 2, there are some of these kids coming out of college that really don’t have Quarterback 101, they’ve never taken a snap from center, they’ve never made a huddle call, they’ve never ID’d the Mike [linebacker], never called a protection, never called an audible and never thrown a hot [read]. That’s six things, that’s Quarterback 101, they’ve never done any of that. So you’ve got that issue.
“I don’t care, the style of the game may evolve and change but the basics, they may evolve but they don’t change. In our league a quarterback has to make plays from the pocket. Has to. If he can’t he’s not gonna be successful, plain and simple.’’
Getting it right sets a franchise up. Getting it wrong can be the ruination of a franchise.
“If you take a guy just to take a guy, especially at the quarterback position, and he fails, you set yourself back five years,’’ Gettleman said. “There are teams that are in what I call quarterback hell. They’ve got a quality defense, they’ve got good special teams and they’re going 9-7 and 8-8, 9-7 and now if there is a legitimate guy they’ve got to trade up and give away the farm to get the guy.’’