Giants Draft Preparations Have an Old-School Feel

Although it hasn’t been by choice, the NFL draft, and how the Giants are preparing for it, are taking on more of an old-school approach reminiscent of how things were done decades ago.

“You know, I said that exact thing that a couple of times that this is like back to the late seventies when you drafted with absolutely no contact with players,” general manager Dave Gettleman said during a conference call with reporters that also included Chris Pettit, the team’s director of college scouting.

“I think at the end of the day it is a little bit old school cause you're not getting the personal touchpoints that we used to have. So it is a little bit old school, and I just think that at the end of the day, it's all about what the kid does between the white lines. It's not about running around in your underwear or running a 40-yard dash or doing a vertical (jump); it's about putting a lid on and playing ball.”

To that end, Gettleman, Pettit and the rest of the Giants decision-makers have continued to emphasize the film and information they’ve been able to glean from multiple sources.

It’s just that this year, that information has become so much more critical that Gettleman and Pettit have tried to leave no stone unturned.

One of the most significant assets the Giant have had has been their coaching staff, of which at least five members have recent experience at the college level.

That experience not only opens the door into some valued firsthand knowledge about the particular school’s prospects but also regarding other players those men coached against.

“It's a big help,” Gettleman said of that additional resource. “(Head coach) Joe 9Judge) hired Burton Burns to coach the running backs, and he's been at Alabama. So just think about all the insight we get into the Bama kids.

“Obviously, a number of our coaches are coming directly from the Southeast conference, so you've got great contacts, and it's very helpful. Our college scouts do a great job in picking out information, so between the information the college scouts have and information from Burton and guys we've hired that are coming from college, it really gives us a good handle.”

What’s also been giving the Giants a good handle on their draft preparation has been Pettit’s directive to the scouts who were pulled off the road amidst the cancellation of college Pro Days because of the COVID-19 pandemic to leave no stone unturned regarding the film.

“When we got called back (from traveling to Pro Days), I started thinking, ‘If we don't get back out, what are the things that we'll miss out on?’” Pettit said. “We did such a good job throughout the fall and the all-star games in the combine, interviewing and testing a lot of players at those venues, so we were able to get a lot of that information.

“What we did is we gathered the scouts together, and we said, 'Hey, use this time now to go back and watch more film. Watch the games you didn't watch, watch him again; call the schools; call the players--be thorough. Not that we wouldn't be, but now you're not going to be an opportunity to be on campus.”

In taking that approach, Pettit said that the scouts were able to come up with some additional information for their reports. However, he also admitted that the team missed not having those in-person interactions with players that they’d normally have during the pro days.

“You miss those small little interactions that you might have being with, with a player personally, whether it's in our building or just on campus,” he said. “That means something. So that's the only thing we lost.”

Other than that, Pettit, like Gettleman, feels good about where the Giants are at given their preparation--and that also includes players who either didn’t participate in the all-star games or at the combine.

They also feel good about the setup for the draft and the security that's in place to make sure the Giants can enjoy the same privacy they'd have in their East Rutherford war room.

“The only thing that’s different is we're not in the same room. We've kind of gone over some scenarios already. We're going to be set up through the different Zoom rooms, and we'll be able to have the same conversations we had every year in the past, just that we're doing it from our homes,” Pettit said.

“But everyone's going to have the same voice that they've always had, and it's been a good process. We've taken some steps, especially this last week, honing it to getting it right where we feel comfortable to make the right decision in the same way we would if we were sitting in our office in East Rutherford.”

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