Do you plan on watching the NFL Draft this weekend? If so, you will probably watch more than Eli Manning.
“I’ll definitely keep up with who is being drafted,” Manning said. “I don’t know if I’ll sit down and watch the whole thing, but I’ll definitely keep up with who the Giants draft and go from there. I’m not going to spend the whole weekend and every day watching every single pick. It’s a lot easier just to go about your business and then catch up every few hours and see how it’s all shaping out.”
Who can blame him? As the comedian Bill Burr said of the draft, “that’s like going to a graduation ceremony where you don’t know anybody who’s graduating.”
It’s not like Manning campaigns for new wide receivers that he can target. “The scouts and management have been working at this a long time,” Manning said. “They’ll figure it out and draft the best guys.”
It is the first draft of the Ben McAdoo era but the first year head coach doesn’t feel the need to have his fingerprints all over the pick. It’s an organizational effort to select which player will go 10th overall in the draft.
“I try to separate what you see off the field and the medical and all those types of things and just evaluate what I see on tape,” McAdoo said. “That is what we as coaches do best, and you trust the scouts; they have been working their tail off. You trust the scouts and they give you the background information; you trust the medical, they work their tail off, too. They go down to Indianapolis, they do it a couple of times and they do the recheck, so you let them do their job. You trust everyone in the process and you go from there.”
That philosophy isn’t exactly reminiscent of Bill Parcells saying that if they want you to cook the dinner they should let you shop for the groceries. Another difference between McAdoo and other first-year coaches is that there isn’t a quarterback that he might be linked with for years to come. Manning and Coughlin both came to the Giants in 2004. In 1979, Ray Perkins and Phil Simms came to the Meadowlands to bring the Giants out of the dark ages. McAdoo isn’t thinking ahead to a long relationship with the future draft pick.
“That may be a little too dramatic for me,” McAdoo said. “I am excited for the process and I will look forward to seeing who is the highest guy on the board.”
The draft takes focus off the minicamp which has a different feel. Even with McAdoo staying on the coaching staff, roles have changed.
“Every year you’re going to change things up,” Manning said. “You’re going to have different things you want to work on. I think, from an offensive standpoint, we have a lot of guys who have been in the system, going into the third year, so there is a comfort level. But you have a new offensive coordinator, a new quarterbacks coach, a new offensive line coach. There are different things going on and different terminologies, so there is an adjustment.”
The draft doesn’t seem as exciting when there isn’t a franchise quarterback for the taking, but that doesn’t make this one any less important. Eli Manning is 35 and the title window might be closing. It’s likely that the Giants would pick a player to help on the defensive side of the ball, although what happens with the nine picks in front of them can change that. And a case could be made for a running back or offensive lineman that could take some pressure off Manning. Still, New York would be wise to select a player that could fix some holes in the swiss cheese defense that suffered one heart wrenching loss after another last season.