With the NFL Draft being this Thursday, Mock Draft season is at its peak. Many of these mock drafts have the New York Giants taking Eli Manning’s successor. Some have them taking one at pick 6, others at 17, and some even predict them trading up to find their quarterback of the future.
A few of these drafts, however, have the Giants passing on a quarterback for the second straight year.Â
Why the New York Giants should wait until 2020 to draft their next QB:
Eli Can Still Play
Giants’ GM Dave Gettleman has said time after time this offseason that Eli Manning is still good enough to be a starting QB in the NFL. He has stated that Eli is the starter and that he can still help the team win a Super Bowl. Many fans are strongly in opposition to these repeated statements, which is understandable. But perhaps Gettleman has a good reason to believe the 38-year-old, 2x Super Bowl champion can still do it? His numbers from last year prove he is good enough to be a starting quarterback.
Manning statistically had one of the best seasons of his career last year. He posted a career high in completion percentage (66.0%), as well as a career low in interceptions thrown (11). Plus, he had the fourth-best passer rating (92.4) of his storied career. His 4,299 passing yards last season were the ninth-most of any player in the NFL. While none of those numbers really jump off the page, it still proves he is plenty good enough to be starting for an NFL team.
Yes…some of these numbers can be attributed to garbage time and the oh so frequent Saquon Barkley dump off, but that’s the reality of this offense. It runs through Barkley, so any quarterback will enjoy the low hanging fruit.
MUST SEE: 2019 NFL Draft Board – Know your rankings going into Thursday!
Why Manning Will be Better in 2019
Many doubters believe that Eli will struggle this next season now that he doesn’t have a true number one receiver with Beckham being gone. There is little reason to expect Eli to perform worse without Beckham though. If anything, he should play better this upcoming season. Manning has thrived in his career when he is spreading the ball around. He excelled last season in the final four games of the season which featured a Beckham-less offense.
In those four games, He threw for 1,036 yards, 6 touchdowns, and only 3 interceptions. During those four games, he had a passer rating of 93.85. If you were to expand those numbers over a full season, you’d get 4,144 passing yards, 24 TD’s and 12 INT’s. Plus, the 93.85 passer rating. Those are numbers that are extremely similar to Dak Prescott, Mitch Trubisky, and even Cam Newton. Yet rarely do you hear people saying one of those players teams’ needs to draft a new QB.
Also working in Eli’s favor, the offensive line will be greatly improved this season, something that prevented Manning from succeeding last season. He gains Golden Tate as well, a player who fits perfectly into the type of pass catcher that makes Eli perform well. Oh, and he has Saquon Barkley in his second season, who will make life even easier for Eli. Manning can still play at the level needed for a team to win.
The Weak Quarterback Class this YearÂ
Many draft analysts have called this draft one of the best for defensive players in years. With players such as Nick Bosa, Josh Allen, and Quinnen Williams, it is easy to see why they believe this. They have also said that the quarterbacks in this year’s draft are sub-par. With big names such as Tua Tagovailoa, Justin Herbert, and Jake Fromm expected to declare in 2020, why settle for a QB this year?
The main quarterbacks who have been tied to the Giants this offseason have been Dwayne Haskins from Ohio State, Daniel Jones from Duke, Drew Lock from Missouri, and Heisman Trophy winner Kyler Murray from Oklahoma. While each of these players is plenty good in their own reason, they all have at least one or two knocks on them.
What Each QB Prospect Struggles With
Haskins, who finished third in Heisman voting last year, had very little experience, something many teams do not like. He had only one season as the starter at Ohio State and very few QB’s have found success in the NFL with such little experience under their belt. His athleticism, or lack there of it, has been pointed out by a number of scouts as well.
Jones, who has been tied to the Giants a lot recently, has a number of issues when it comes to just playing the game. He struggles to throw with consistent accuracy and setting himself in a position to make good throws. While he is very athletic and mobile, he sometimes takes unnecessary hits instead of sliding or going out of bounds.
Lock, who has the highest ceiling of any Quarterback in this class, struggles when it comes to accuracy and footwork. There should be an asterisk next to the accuracy knock though, as he played on a Missouri team that struggled to give him time to set himself and make good throws. The footwork issue can be worked on, something that should help Lock’s stock.
Murray, the Heisman Trophy winner, scares many teams away because of his size. At barely 5’10’’ and 200 pounds, people are hesitant about his durability. Very few quarterbacks his size have made it to the NFL, and even fewer have found success while in it. But, if you can put those things aside, you get a freakish athlete who is arguably one of the explosive players in this draft.
No Clear No. 1 QB Prospect
If you were to look at each team’s QB big board you would find major differences between each. Some have Haskins as the best and Murray as the fourth while others have Jones at 1 and Murray at 2. There is no clear cut number 1 QB prospect in this year’s draft. Each of the top prospects has their own cons, so why settle?
The Team has Bigger Needs
The Giants have a number of gaping holes on the defensive side of the ball. They need help on defense, and they need it badly. With so many generational defensive talents in this class, you can’t risk passing up on one for a position that isn’t a pressing need.
As mentioned earlier, the quarterback class of 2020 features players who are significantly better than this years’. Tagovailoa, Herbert, and Fromm are all projected top 10 picks for next year’s draft. Each of them is going to be a player that turns a franchise around. And perhaps most importantly, if they were in this years draft, all of them would be graded higher than any QB prospect in this year’s class.
The Giants do not need to draft a quarterback in this year’s draft. They have too many holes on defense for them to draft a player that won’t help win now. The team should draft defensive players at both picks 6 &17, and draft a Quarterback next year. Eli can still play and can help Big Blue win.