THE QB QUANDARY
You cannot grade on a curve when it comes to selecting a quarterback in the NFL draft. If the Giants are to take one with the No. 2 pick Thursday night, they will have to do just that — lower their stand a rd s just enough to restock the most important position on the field.
The question may come down to this: Forget about potential g reatness. Is there the next Jared Goff out there and, if so, is that a high enough ceiling for Eli Manning’s successor?
There is strong sentiment inside the organization to sit at No. 2 and, if the Browns take Sam Darnold — that remains the most likely scenario — gleefully take running back Saquon Barkley, who instantly upgrades everything — and we mean eve r y t h i n g — wi t h the entire offensive operation.
“Freak’’ sa i d someone wi t h k n owl e d ge of the Gi a n t s ’ draft thinking, referring to Barkley.
Putting the Barkley infatuation to the side, what to do about a quarterback is a hot-button issue the Giants cannot ignore. They likely will not take one up so high in this draft, but that does not mean they aren’t thinking about it.
The Giants look at this year’s top prospects — and do not be so sure they view Darnold as the best of the bunch — and do not see the caliber of quarterback that came out of the 2004 draf t t hat produced El i Manning, Ben Roethlisberger and Philip Rivers. They are looking into the more recent past to determine if this crop, or at least one of them, can measure up to t he q ua r te r ba c k s who came off the board 1-2 in 2016: Goff and Carson Wentz.
The baseline is this as far as the Giants are concerned: Can they envision any one of these players being a really good starting quarterback for 15 years? If that sounds like grading on a curve, so be it.
Gettleman has attached two prerequisites to the No. 2 pick: He must be a player he can envision one day getting inducted to the Hall of Fame and he must be deemed worthy of the second overall pick not only this year, but in any year. It is diff icult to consider any of these quarterbacks as worthy of the No. 2 pick in any draft — an admission some inside the Giants’ building grudgingly admit.
Given how pol a r i z i ng this is — take a gamble on a quarterback or go for the sure thing in Barkley, defensive end Bradley Chubb or, more likely a few picks later if there is a trade down, guard Quenton Nelson — it should not be surprising that these conversations are going on in the Giants’ inner sanctum. This could lead to a divide — those who think quarterback is the way to go and those who do not.
Ownership could push for the immediate impact pl ayer ( Barkley, Chubb, Nelson) as part of a winnow thrust with the 37-year old Manning. Lest we forget, co-owner John Mara was quick to reverse himself late last season, completely disavowing the “We need to see Davis Webb play’’ rhetoric when the Manning benching went sour. Mara and Steve Tisch, more than the front office, might factor into the awkwardness of having Manning sharing a locker room