New York Giants 2022 Combine Preview

The official roster rebuild season is on for the Giants, a team with a lot of work ahead of it starting with this week's scouting combine.

Author:
Patricia Traina
Publish date:
Feb 28, 2022 6:03 PM EST

Since head coach Tom Coughlin resigned after the 2015 season, the Giants have had three coaching staffs with very different philosophies and approaches, none of which panned out and all of which were jettisoned after two seasons.

They are now on staff No. 4, as led by Brian Daboll, the whiz kid from Buffalo whose offensive system made quarterback Josh Allen a household name. Daboll has put together what appears to be a solid staff of assistants that have both NFL and coaching experience.

But as Giants fans have sadly learned, while everything looks good on paper, in the end, it's how they look on the field that matters most.

That's where Daboll and his staff potentially can have the advantage over the other staffs the Giants have hired.

In taking over a sluggish, hapless Giants offense as led by quarterback Daniel Jones, Daboll is doing something with Jones that helped unlock Allen's full potential in Buffalo.

He's sought Jones's input on what type of plays he likes to run and will use that information as a foundation for building a system around the quarterback rather than around a specific skill player.

While that's a step in the right direction, it means nothing if the Giants don't finally address the offensive line, a project that previous general manager Dave Gettleman vowed to fix, yet four years after making that initial promise was unable to achieve the desired results.

Fortunately for the Giants, this year's draft class is loaded with offensive line talent to where the team might not have to sweat it if the top two projected picks, Alabama OT Evan Neal and North Carolina State OT Ikem Ekwonu, are off the board by the time the Giants go on the clock.

According to multiple draft analysts, the Giants could go defensive edge rusher, another loaded position, or they could trade down to acquire more picks.

The possibilities are undoubtedly endless for Big Blue. While not everyone will ultimately agree with the choices that general manager Joe Schoen, assistant general manager Brandon Brown and Daboll make, as long as the results yield a more competitive team moving forward, that's all anyone can realistically hope for.

2021 Season in Review

If the Giants haven't learned that spending wildly in free agency is not the way to build a successful football program, then all hope is lost.

Fortunately, it does sound as though new general manager Joe Schoen is more committed to building through the draft, which is the right way to do things. He also expressed a desire to not only build through the draft but to also find ways to retain talent that comes through that pipeline, something the Giants haven't done a very good job of over the last five years per the chart below.

With a bunch of needs staring them right in the face, there are none more pressing than the offensive line. According to Spotrac, the Giants have just seven offensive linemen currently under contract, three of whom (Nick Gates, Shane Lemieux, and Matt Peart) are coming off season-ending injuries that could delay their availability for the start of training camp.

The struggles of the offensive line last year, brought about by a combination of injuries and a lack of depth, had a direct impact on quarterback Daniel Jones, who, per Pro Football Focus, was under pressure on 34.4 percent of his dropbacks, tying him for 17th most among quarterbacks who played in at least 20 percent of their team's passing snaps. Jones was accurate on 50.9 percent of those dropbacks in which he was under pressure, and at times forced balls into spots that weren't meant to be forced.

Besides the offensive line, the Giants are likely to look to add a true nose guard to their defensive front, a pass rusher (Lorenzo Carter will be an unrestricted free agent, and Oshane Ximines just hasn't panned out for the team in three seasons). As expected, they could also use another cover cornerback if they move on from James Bradberry and his $21+ million salary cap hit.

Tight end is also a need if the team agrees that Evan Engram needs a fresh start and Kyle Rudolph is finished. Adding another running back would also be a smart move, with Saquon Barkley and Devontae Booker entering the final years of their respective contracts. So too, would adding another receiver if the team moves on from Sterling Shepard, as is being anticipated.

2022 Draft Position

One of the few things former general manager Dave Gettleman did right in his final year at the helm was to equip the team with nine draft picks (Nos. 5, 7, 36, 67, 81, 110, 146, 172, and 180). five of those picks are in the top 100, and two are in the top 10, which means the Giants should come away with solid prospects to help fill several needs.

Keep an eye on what the Giants do with their two first-round picks. While the expectation is for them to use one pick to help a woefully underperforming offense and the other to help a defense that still needs a few more pieces, new general manager Joe Schoen could look to move down from one of those two spots if a quarterback-needy team is desperate to move into the top-10.

Such a move would not only lessen the Giants' 2022 cap liabilities for their draft class but, if New York can turn such a pick into picks for 2023, even better. Figure that by then, the Giants will know for sure if they have to get another quarterback or if they can float by with taking the top non-quarterback in next year's draft that falls within their range.

Helped Wanted/Needed

When a team is continuously finding itself drafting in the top-10, that's never a good thing, yet here the Giants are again, for the fourth time in the last five years--and they barely missed the top-10 last year when they finished with the eleventh spot.

The Giants, who are coming off a 4-13 season, may have been a better team on paper. That said, there continued to be some significant glaring holes that, for whatever the reason, the previous regime just couldn't get right, starting with the offensive line.

The Giants gambled last year that their young offensive line would come together and be a solid unit for at least the next three seasons. That said, they didn't allow for the possibility of injury, which ended up striking down three of the five projected starters they were hoping to roll forward with (Shane Lemieux, Nick Gates, and Matt Peart).

They also made the head-scratching decision to roll with veteran depth as backups while passing on the opportunity to add young talent to the pi[eline for the coaches to develop.

When it was all said and done, Gettleman had to scramble to add younger talent via trades and by then, what was available to him was, shall we say, not of the highest quality.

This new regime won't make that same mistake. It knows that no matter who the quarterback or skill position players are, and no matter what the scheme, if the offensive line is garbage, it won't matter. And while no one should expect the Giants to go all-in on the draft at the offensive line--there will likely be a free-agent or two added to the mix--one doesn't have to be an insider to know that the offensive line will be the top priority.

Defensively, new defensive coordinator Don "Wink" Martindale likes to be aggressive. That means he's going to need corners that can hold their coverage as well as playmakers in the back end of the defense.

With New York expected to make some tough salary-cap decisions in the coming days--there's no way they can carry cornerback James Bradberry's $21+ million cap hit in 2022--expect the defense to get a fair amount of love at all three levels to ensure Martindale has what he needs to run his style of football.

Five Players the Giants Must Watch

Several players who might be on the Giants' radar will not be taking part in the drills for one reason or another, including Alabama OT Evan Neal and LSU CB Derek Stingley Jr, both of whom will meet with teams for interviews but will wait to test at their respective school Pro Days.

RELATED: Names to Watch for Giants During NFL Combine

Thankfully there is plenty of game tape on both of those prospects, and there will be other prospects that are going to go through the set of drills some have called "the underwear Olympics." Who are some of the other players the Giants might be locked in on this week?

OT Ikem Ekwonu, North Carolina State. NFL Draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah opined that if Okwonu is sitting there at No. 5 for the Giants, the pick would be a "slam dunk." And with good reason. The Giants need to reinvent their offensive line, and what better way to do so than to pair a young tackle with as much upside as Okownu at right tackle opposite of Andrew Thomas on the other side?

DE Kayvon Thibodeaux, Oregon. Chances are Thibodeaux won't make it down to the Giants at No. 5, but if he's there and the two offensive tackles are off the board, the Giants might want to consider the man who finished second in the Pac-12 in sacks (7.0) for a pass rush that has some parts but could use some additional firepower upfront.

OT Tyler Smith, Tulsa. If the Giants can't land a top offensive line prospect in the first round, they can always look to Day 2 in this very deep class of offensive linemen. Tulsa's Smith could end up seeing his stock rise with a solid showing at the combine and his pro day. Still, if he somehow falls to the Giants on Day 2, he could very well be a nice consolation pick if Neal and Okwanu are off the board and they want to grab an offensive lineman.

LB Devin Lloyd, Utah. With Don Martindale now calling the defense, how much might he like having a blitzing inside linebacker who can play zone, takes good angles to the ball carrier, and has sufficient length? Martindale hasn't spoken to the media since being hired by the Giants, but given what he's run in the past, it's hard to imagine that he wouldn't want aggressive players such as the Pac-12's leading tackler in 2021 who is capable of getting home with his blitzing.

S Kyle Hamilton, Notre Dame. A safety in the first round? It's not as crazy as it sounds, not when talking about the unicorn known as Kyle Hamilton. Hamilton is a solid tackler with near-elite coverage skills and diagnosis ability. While the Giants might appear to be set at safety for the time being with Logan Ryan, Julian Love, and Xavier McKinney, Ryan, and Love are probably not long-term answers, whereas adding Hamilton would offer an instant upgrade to the Giants' defensive secondary.

Who Makes The Call and Recent Draft Hits and Misses

The Giants aren't necessarily looking to the past regarding their roster-building approach this year, nor should they have generated a disappointing 19-46 mark after the last four years. But that doesn't mean that lessons cannot be gleaned from those otherwise forgettable years.

For one, the Giants can't limit themselves to a small handful of programs to find talent. Yes, the Alabamas and Georgias of the world are powerhouses, but as new assistant general manager Brandon Brown pointed out, football players can be found from all walks of life and that it's the job of the scouts to find them. Further, the coaching staff must not be afraid to develop these kids who come from programs where there isn't as much familiarity.

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Lastly, it has to be about value. Everyone would no doubt love to dine at Prime 47 for a steak dinner, but if a comparable dinner can be found at Weber Grill for a lesser price, then the Giants would be foolish to overlook that value. In other words, it's too easy to fall in love with a big name that will likely cost a lot more than a lesser-known name that might be capable of delivering similar results.

If nothing else, the next several weeks and months will be interesting to watch unfold as we acquire a feel for how Schoen, Brown, and Daboll approach what is currently "a giant task" of rebuilding a franchise that has flirted with rock bottom over most of the last decade.