How ’bout Big Apple love?
Jets, Giants couldhelp each other by making a deal
The Jets and Giants share the same town, the same stadium and the same hatred for each other. They play nice in public circles, but they'd love nothing more than for the other to epically fail. They take great satisfaction in the other's misery.
They're textbook frenemies.
So, it's particularly delicious now that these two teams can actually help each other out in the upcoming draft, with no strings attached.
It's a win-win scenario for the Jets and Giants: Swap first-round picks.
Oh, sure. The Giants will have to give up additional premium draft capital to move up from No. 6 to No. 3, but every clear-thinking person knows that Big Blue would be wise to secure a franchise quarterback one year after they eschewed one.
General manager Dave Gettleman's admission Wednesday at the Scouting Combine that senior citizen Eli Manning will return in 2019 shouldn't preclude the Giants from drafting a signal caller in April.
The Jets can do for the Giants what the Giants did for the Jets last year by aiding them in landing a franchise quarterback. Granted, the Giants basically gift-wrapped Sam Darnold for Gang Green by taking a running back with the second overall pick, but the point remains the same.
The least that Mike Maccagnan can do now is to return the favor by sliding down three spots for their New York/New Jersey buddies.
“I think I'd be open to any team as long as the trade made sense to us,” Maccagnan said Wednesday. “There's nothing that would stop us from doing that.”
Would Gettleman make a bold move to trade up for the right signal caller? “No guts, no glory,” he said. Maccagnan admitted that his decision not to engage in trade talks with the Giants last year had more to do with the additional compensation it would have required to move from No. 6 to No. 2 than No. 3 with the Colts. The Jets
moved fast after whiffing on Kirk Cousins in free agency by ponying up three secondround picks to Indianapolis
“We thought honestly that extra spot from No. 3 to No. 2 would probably cost us a future (first-round pick),” Maccagnan said. “Also, we did the trade at maybe at a time when most people weren’t looking to do that. So, if you draw more attention to it, sometimes the cost becomes higher. Or you get closer to the draft, the same thing happens…. A lot of times when you go into draft day, you have that pressure… you don’t know what’s going to happen. You’re trying to move up in the draft to go get a player. Sometimes people historically tend to pay a little bit more in those environments.”
In other words, the Jets operated in stealth mode to make the smartest deal they could quickly after free agency. Jets intel operatives were also pretty damn sure that Gettleman had the hots for Saquon Barkley, which meant that trading up to No. 3 would be high enough to land Baker Mayfield. (It wound up being Darnold after the Browns pulled the ol’ switcha-roo with the top overall pick).
“We felt with all the research we did, No. 3 was kind of the spot,” Maccagnan said. “We also thought if we got to No. 3 with all the information we gathered, we felt comfortable that it was going to be hard to get ahead of us. Because we paid a pretty good price for it.”
Maccagnan might not be analyzing this year’s quarterback class, but he certainly hopes that Ohio State’s Dwayne Haskins, Oklahoma’s Kyler Murray, Missouri’s Drew Lock or anyone else crushes it during the pre-draft evaluation process.
One year after teams were jockeying for position to land one of the coveted quarterbacks in the draft, the Jets could potentially benefit if at least one team falls in love with this new group of signal callers.
“I think there may be a similar situation this year,” Maccagnan said. “We’ll see. If there are teams up there looking to chase a quarterback, I think we’re in a pretty good position to be in. I know there’s definitely three good football players in this year’s draft. So, it’ll be interesting to see. Hey, if we have to sit there at No. 3 and pick a player, we’ll be very happy with that too. I don’t necessarily like how we got the third pick, but it’s a good pick to have.”
The Jets-Colts deal could provide a guideline if the Giants want to do business with Gang Green before the draft.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Maccagnan said with a laugh. “We have charts. We have trade values. My personal opinion is if you’re trying to go chase a quarterback, it’s whatever the market is… (and) then some.”
The Giants need a quarterback. The Jets want additional draft picks. A trade makes perfect sense. If you can’t count on your frenemies to help you out, who can you count on?