Giants’ Unorthodox Draft Has Multiple Meanings
Bypassing Skill Players in the Draft is a Rarity
If the New York Giants’ draft this season seemed a bit odd, there is a good reason for it.
They chose seven players altogether, one in each round. Very traditional. Five are defensive players. The the other two are an offensive lineman and a punter.
For the first time in 17 years, and only the second time in franchise history, the Giants did not select an offensive “skill” player in the draft.
The first time this happened was in 1956. The Giants selected Henry Moore, a DB from Arkansas in Round One. Moore played one year for the team. He was out of football by 1958.
The rest of the draft did, however, yield a few gems: Sam Huff, Jim Katcavage and Don Chandler. The Giants went on to win the NFL Championship that year, a feat they would not repeat for another thirty years.
Before that draft, the Giants had only one playoff appearance in the previous ten seasons. The team was stacked on offense with Charley Connerly, Frank Gifford, Alex Webster, Mel Triplett and Kyle Rote, causing the Maras and Jim Lee Howell to seek help in the trenches and on defense in the draft.
In 1993, the Giants did not have a first round selection, having used it the previous season in a supplementary draft on Duke QB Dave Brown. George Young still had eight picks in his pocket and needed to re-establish his defense.
He did that with his first and final selections – DE Michael Strahan and LB Jesse Armstead. The rest of the draft was not as fruitful. The Giants were in their first season under Dan Reeves and would rebound from the Ray Handley era with an 11-5 season and a trip to the playoffs.
The club would soon come crashing back to reality the next three seasons, going 20-28 leading to the ultimate dismissal of Reeves. The collapse was not all Reeves’ fault.
Brown was an average player who could barely stave off the likes of Kent Graham and Danny Kanell. The offense,which had only one real star – RB Rodney Hampton – was anemic, and Young made poor selections in the ensuing drafts trying to augment it.
These drafts became turning points in the club’s history. The draft of ’56 completed the team and sent it on a winning path. The ’93 draft was seen as a quick fix (sans Strahan and Armstead) that would damage the team for years to come.
This year’s draft will also be a turning point. Defense was a problem in 2009 and the Giants needed depth desperately at all positions. The offensive line needed interior help and they also needed a punter. They got all of that last week at the draft. The team is chock full of rushing and receiving talent, to there was no need to draft any players at those “skill” positions.
If they need any, there is always free-agency, which wasn’t there in ’56 and was in its infancy in the mid-90′s.
In ’56 they were a good team that filled holes, got back on its feet and won a championship. In ’93 they thought they had long-term answers on offense, but did not.
The current outcome appears to be leaning towards the ’56 one in this case.
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