New York Giants dropping smoke screens around edge-rusher evaluations

The New York Giants are doing their due diligence with all of the pass rushers projected to go in the first two rounds of the 2021 NFL draft. The rumors have been circulating as of late, with the Giants been connected to players like Alabama’s DeVonta Smith and even Miami’s Jaelan Phillips.

At the end of the day, the Giants are doing a fantastic job of keeping their intentions unknown, while previous years showed they had leaks within the organization giving away essential information regarding their potential draft selections. Now, it seems as if the media and fan base are surrounded by smoke screens, as the Giants have sent front office members to evaluate pass rushers this draft class.

The New York Giants cannot reach at 11:

The primary concern is if the Giants will reach for a player that isn’t worthy of being selected 11th overall, but in a trade back scenario, you could justify taking an EDGE who can make an impact immediately. The problem is, this class is weak, which leads me to believe the Giants might be targeting a pass rusher at 42, which is why they are sending plenty of evaluators and scouts to their pro days to gauge a projection on the draft board.

The best part about signing wide receiver Kenny Golladay and corner Adoree’ Jackson this past off-season is that it allows the Giants to go best player available in the first round unless there’s a player that fills a massive hole that they can’t pass up. A player like Northwestern’s Rashawn Slater might fit that mold, as he would offer a potential Pro-Bowl level right guard after the departure of Kevin Zeitler this off-season due to cap-saving methods.

It is nice to see management working behind the scenes, as a situation a few years ago when the Chicago Bears leapfrogged the Giants to secure pass rusher Leonard Floyd exposed a major leak in the organization. If the Bears didn’t know the Giants wanted Floyd, the draft might’ve played out far differently, so keeping things under wraps and dropping smoke screens to different media members is a great strategy to confuse opposing teams.