The silver lining for an abysmal season in New York has become the second pick in the draft. So what will G.M. Dave Gettleman do with that selection?
“With the second pick, we’re going to take the best player,” Gettleman told the team’s official website. “They screamed at me in Carolina, ‘You’ve got to draft a tackle, you’ve got to draft a tackle.’ If the value’s not there when you pick, you’re going to make a mistake. You’ll make a mistake. We’re going to set ourselves up so that we can take the best player available. And if the best player available is a quarterback, then that’s what we’re going to do.”
But if the best player isn’t a quarterback, Gettleman won’t take a quarterback.
“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. “You set yourself back five years because there are teams that are in what I call quarterback hell. They’ve got quality defense, they’ve got a good special teams, and they’re going 7-9, 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.”
The Giants traded up 14 years ago to get Eli Manning, and the future of the aging franchise quarterback hovers over the franchise. New coach Pat Shurmur could be able to deliver Case Keenum or Sam Bradford, but if Eli is still the starter, Keenum or Bradford may be reluctant to make the move.
Whatever the Giants do, they need a successor to Eli Manning. First, they’ll need to decide whether they need that successor this year, next year, or beyond.