When we here at Giants Wire pointed out that the New York Giants failed to address one of their most glaring needs in this year’s NFL Draft, we were met with a ton of resistance.
Yet here we are six weeks later and our analysis is becoming the consensual thinking.
“The Giants did not use any of their 10 draft picks this year on receivers, so they clearly did not view this position as an area of great need,” writes NY Post Giants beat reporter Paul Schwartz. “Some disagree with that view.”
Correct. We were quick to mention that the Giants failed to draft a wide receiver in one the most prolific wide receiver classes in recent memory. It is a common thread since Dave Gettleman took over as general manager, consistently drafting against the draft grain.
The Giants have invested heavily in Sterling Shepard and veteran Golden Tate and are high on second-year player Darius Slayton, but most teams for five and six players deep at wide receiver these days.
Amani Toomer, the Giants’ all-time leading receiver, believes the Giants missed the boat and is not sold on the team’s thinking that the current group of wideouts is sufficient enough to get the job done in this day and age of high-powered offenses.
“I think it’s lacking,” Toomer told The Post recently.
“I’m a little disappointed with Shepard, I don’t know. My dad always used to tell me, ‘He’s hell when he’s well, he’s just sick all the time.’ That’s what I think when I think of him. He’s just always, there’s always something hurt, or something.
“I think Golden Tate is just a tougher version of him. Basically they’re the same receiver, but Golden Tate is a tougher version of him.”
Toomer is impressed with Slayton, however.
Slayton, a fifth-round draft pick out of Auburn last year, led the team with eight receiving touchdowns.
“I think he’s the guy what has the most upside,” Toomer said.
Of course he is. Shepard suffered two concussions last season and Tate is 32.
That aside, Toomer is still puzzled by the Giants’ decision to part ways with Odell Beckham Jr. last spring.
“I’m still confused on why they got rid of Odell,” he said. “Really confused. And every time I ask somebody in the office, it’s like, ‘Well, it was a fit thing’ and all this nebulous, circumstantial stuff. Or, ‘Oh he wasn’t a good fit in the locker room.’ But everybody I talked to loved him. Even the trainers all loved him. So I don’t know.
“They went from having a strength to now it’s a position where they need something else.”
Unless one of the many unsung players on their roster or one of the UDFAs they inked after the draft becomes the next Victor Cruz, the Giants could be undermanned at wide receiver in a league that’s beefing up on them.
Philadelphia took a wide receiver (Jalen Reagor of TCU) in the first round this year. So did Dallas (Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb), while the Giants were playing catch-up taking offensive linemen they should have been flush with for years had they run their drafts correctly.
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