Saquon Barkley’s possible departure from the New York Giants this offseason had some in the media fantasizing about how their front office could have gone about the 2023 NFL draft differently as a failsafe.
CBS Sports’ Chris Trapasso re-drafted the first-round selections for 2023 and had RB Jahmyr Gibbs going to the Giants with the No. 25 overall selection.
Giants are happy with Deonte Banks but may have missed out on supreme young RB talent in the 2023 draft
The Giants selected cornerback Deonte Banks at 25 in last year’s draft. Banks gave the G-Men two interceptions, 11 passes defended, and two tackles for loss in his rookie campaign.
Yes, Banks came on the scene as a ready contributor for the Giants’ secondary. Albeit, Trapasso placed Gibbs in the hands of the Giants largely because of the void that the team would be facing at this current time.
Gibbs put up monster rookie numbers on the Detroit Lions this past season
With just the right amount of foresight, the Giants could have offset the damaging franchise tag they placed on Barkley by drafting his understudy, a player in Gibbs who also showed he was NFL-ready with a whopping 945 rushing yards and 10 rushing touchdowns across 15 games and even more astoundingly, only three starts.
He became one of only a couple handfuls of backfield talents to run into the end zone 10 or more times in their rookie season during the 21st century. Had he been on the Giants behind Barkley, we may not have seen Gibbs explode the way he did with the Lions. No matter, he’s proven himself to be a high-end young ball carrier and would have helped the Giants immensely.