New York Giants Pre-Draft Musings

Here are a few final thoughts before the 2021 NFL draft gets underway.

We're just hours away from getting the answers to the months-old question, "Who's it gonna be at No. 11?" Well, I don't know as of this writing. I have my theories and educated guesses at the ready, but nothing is official until the card is in Roger Goodell's hands.

Until the Giants do go on the clock, here are a few last-minute musings.

I'm 99.9% certain the Giants aren't going to trade up from No. 11. Why? Because to do so, they'd almost certainly have to include some sort of combination of a player and draft picks, and with six draft picks this year, I don't see them parting with any of them.

As for next year, when there is going to be even more talent in the draft when we (hopefully) go back to more of a normal post-pandemic world, the Giants (who by the way won't have any comp picks next year given all they did in free agency this year) are going to want to have their full slate of picks.

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I'm pretty sure the Giants won't draft Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons at No. 11. (Note: Before jumping all over me, this is my gut feeling, not what I would necessarily do.) I think the first-round pick will come down to one of the top two cornerbacks if there or one of Jaylen Waddle or Devonta Smith of Alabama.

If none of those four players are there at No. 11--hard to imagine if talk about as many as five quarterbacks potentially going in the first round comes to fruition--then I could see the Giants looking to trade down where then they might look at an edge rusher (maybe then Parsons would make sense?).

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I think it's probably safe to assume that the Giants are going to draft a guard. This is a deep class for interior offensive linemen to where they might be able to wait until Day 2 to get a guard. If that were to happen, the Giants would have Shane Lemieux, Will Hernandez, Zach Fulton, and the new draft pick.

Might that mean that one of Hernandez or Fulton, who are signed through this year only, could be on the move one way or another? I would think that the Giants might want to have a competition for the two starting guard jobs first before moving on from any of the candidates

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This will sound crazy, but with all this talk about the Giants potentially drafting a cornerback at No. 11, that got me wondering about Jabrill Peppers' long-term future here.

According to Pro Football Focus, Peppers' final 2020 season snap counts saw him play 383 snaps in the box, 264 snaps in the slot, and 143 at free safety.

But when Xavier McKinney returned from injured reserve, he drew some of Peppers' snaps in the team's last three games of the season.

While that might mean nothing--after all, one can never have too many good players at a position group--it's worth noting the Giants haven't yet done anything to extend Peppers' contract, which is in the option year of his rookie deal and which he is due $6.77 million.

So what does this have to do with drafting a cornerback?

The Giants like versatility, and if they were to land one of the two top cornerbacks in this draft, could they maybe get by with McKinney and Logan Ryan as their starting safeties (with Julian Love the third man of the group); James Bradberry and the new cornerback as their perimeter guys, and Adoree' Jackson and Darnay Holmes in the slot?

South Carolina's Jaycee Horn took most of his college snaps as an outside cornerback, so if he's the pick, presumably he'd move to the outside, which would push Jackson to the slot role. The same would probably hold for Patrick Surtain II if he were to be the pick.

From a cap perspective, Over the Cap lists the Giants with $5,040,201 in total cap space for 2021. However, when it comes to effective cap space (what they need to be in cap compliance under the Top 51 rule that runs until the start of the regular season), the Giants have $936,897 of space (presumably an amount that includes the $4M+ they'll need for their rookie class).

That's not a lot of space right now to work with for a team that has already maxed out its cap dollars and which is potentially facing a serious crunch next year. They can clear some space by extending one or both of Peppers or tight end Evan Engram's contracts, and that could still potentially happen in the next several weeks.

Whether they do so, however, will be very telling.

I have gone on the record as predicting it will be WR Jaylen Waddle if he lasts to No. 11, but in having slept on it, this is a pretty deep class for slot receivers and not so much so for perimeter guys.

While I still think Waddle is in play, I can see a stronger case being made for DeVonta Smith if he's there because if they were to add him to the mix, now they have a strong unit of perimeter receivers who can also occasionally line up in the slot. And I can see why it would make more sense to add to the perimeter group and wait to add a potential slot replacement for Sterling Shepard later in the draft.

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