How the Giants Drafted Eli Apple
I was pretty mad when the G-men took Eli Apple at #10. Up to the draft I was joking that it would be fun to have two Eli’s on one team but I never thought they’d actually do it. Especially with VH3 still on the board. I’d also have preferred Tunsil, but the Giants are too stubborn about that sort of thing to actually pull the trigger. Apple was a reach at #10, we could have traded back and picked him up in the late teens and the pick would have felt far less stupid. Maybe he’ll be good, and I’ll eat my words. He’ll play slot corner to cover up the fact that we have zero linebackers. We had bigger needs (like, you know, LINEBACKERS), but the position itself could use some more potential bodies out there.
I was happy with the rest of the Giants draft. Sterling Shepard seems like another WR with OBJ skills (though probably not as good) and it’ll be nice to have him opposite Beckham while Cruz gets a reduced role since he likely won’t be as good anymore. Darian Thompson plays center field safety, possibly our most needed position after last year. He’ll join like 5 previously injuried guys and compete for the spot, and most importantly will get strong safety Landon Collins up close where he belongs. Collins sucked as a FS. Then we picked some linebacker in the 4th. I fully expect another special teams player out of him, like most linebackers we choose. Paul Perkins from UCLA seemed like a dumb pick to me because we already have 5 RBs but when I cracked jokes on twitter a lot of people called it a great pick. He seems like a small shifty quick guy. I hope this means Andre Williams gets cut, the 1 yard hammer has no vision. Then we grabbed a TE who will probably never do a thing. All in all, a B for this draft. First pick was a headscratcher, we didn’t grab any linemen, but the picks seem fine.
Also, be sure to check out this year’s Draft Cards! I have added them to the site.
I think Apple was overdrafted, but I like him as a prospect. He reminds me of Jimmy Smith out of Colorado a few years ago, a raw, overaggressive corner prospect who’s going to need to be coached up, but has every physical tool you a corner could possibly need to be great. Smith’s been marred by injuries, but as long as Apple can stay healthy and McAdoo’s secondary coaching is better than Coughlin’s, I think he could work out very nicely in New York.
I think Eli Apple’s gonna work out very well with Eli in the Big Apple…get it? No? Nothing? Ok, I’m gonna leave now…
LOL NICE ONE BRO
(Don’t quit your day job)
Actually, they probably just had the board organized alphabetically…
Apple was the worst pick of the first round, if not the whole draft.
As a Bucs fan, I disagree.
Trading up to take a kicker in the 2nd.
And we were doing so good, too.
Meh, don’t sweat it too much, Aguayo’s a stud, and the last overdrafted K is still in the league
Back to the Arena League, (0-4) Portland achieved a moral victory by losing by only 32 on the road against (5-0) Arizona, 60-28 on Saturday. Last night (4-1) Philadelphia continued the Monday night home team’s woe by beating the (2-3)KISS 56-33.
Now for Tampa, who limited Jacksonville to 33 points and actually had a lead in the 4th quarter for the first time all season after taking the opening kickoff for a TD when TT Tolliver made a fantastic leaping and diving catch to catch the pass in the back of the endzone while running full speed. If you didn’t notice above, I said Jacksonville scored 33 points. Tampa still has yet to score 30 because of horrible QB play (although the stats won’t tell you that) from Johnathan Bane, who overthrew and underthrew wide open receivers about 5 or 6 times on plays that any other qb in the league could make at least 1 of those times to do the unthinkable and give the Storm more than 30 points in game. J’ville is now 2-3 while the Storm are now 0-4.
Here’s the only four ways (from most likely to least likely) the Storm don’t become the ’03 Carolina Cobras (Arena League ’08 Lions) or the ’95 Memphis Pharaohs (Arena League ’76 Bucs).
1. Split with Portland.
2. The defense plays balls to the walls and keeps the opponents under 27 points (which is how many they scored against the Sharks and their average on the season).
3. Move the team in the middle of the season to Denver, become the Colorado 4:20s, and get all of the suspended weed players like Josh Gordon
4. Score more than 30 points in an fucking game
Question: What separates the 0-4 Storm from the 0-4 Steel as far as worst team in the AFL right now?
With those draft pick drawings, you totally missed the opportunity to draw Sterling Shepard in N7 armor.
Or in spy gear. Either way.
Yes, the Laremy Tunsil pick would have made sense for the Giants. He could have been another wasted first round pick on an offensive lineman. Pugh and Flowers, anyone? Also the Giants wouldn’t take Tunsil because they wouldn’t sign anyone with a previous history of drug use.
Also in terms of Hargreaves vs. Apple, I think Apple would be the better CB. He’s taller and faster than Hargreaves. It may seem like a reach at #10, but the Giants had their pick taken from them by the Bears so they went with their backup in the secondary. It’s not like this team is going from 6-10 to the playoffs next season, and maybe Apple will have a good year and within a few seasons, the duo of him and Landon Collins will strike fear in opposing QB’s for years to come.
But Pugh is good and Flowers is just raw and spent half the season hurt? All we need is one more good tackle to replace Marshall Newhouse and our Line is pretty solid actually.
Pugh is meh. He’s good in terms of Giants O-Line standards but he doesn’t hold a candle to any “good” O-Lineman leaguewide. It wouldn’t have hurt to have taken Kyle Long over Pugh in 2013.
And yeah maybe I am knocking Flowers too early. But he did play 15 games last season and wasn’t effective. There were a lot of times where Eli was pressured from the left side because Flowers was overwhelmed by veteran defenders. Hopefully that won’t be the case this season.
This line is ok but it won’t be “solid” anytime soon. Which is a shame because Eli has been putting up some good seasons since 2013, and he could be doing even better (7-9, BABY) if he had average protection.
But one day in the future, Eli will be gone, and we’ll build a solid defense and O-Line that will carry Ryan Nassib to two Superbowl wins over Jacoby Brissett, because that’s how it goes, right?
I just wanted to upgrade the linebacker spot. The o line slowly but surely develops every season but Uani Unga is not the future. We got Goodson but I’m not as high on the Clemson mid round guys as others.
Well, we would have taken Floyd to take over for Unga but the Bears nabbed him a pick ahead of us. It’s good either way because we need to upgrade both our linebacker corps and our secondary. We can always draft a linebacker with our Top 10 pick next year.
Apple v. Hargreaves– like all Giants fans I was initially upset, but since then it’s pretty clearly the right pick.
Anyone who still thinks VH3 would’ve been better, or that we could’ve traded down and taken Apple…. put way too much stock in mock drafts & armchair experts, and hasn’t paid enough attention to what the actual teams are saying.
1. Apple has more potential with his length & speed
2. The Giants and their (actually professional, non fan/mock) scouting department had him rated higher
3. Other teams likely would’ve picked him before any spot we could’ve traded down to
This notion that they could’ve traded down and still taken him? That’s 100% based on mocks and not any sort of real info. Since the draft, it’s come out that both the Bucs (11) and the Dolphins (13) would’ve taken Apple if he were there. That may just be BS, but I’m more willing to believe that than all the mock draft experts who decided VH3 was definitely better (and hey, they convinced me too at the time)
The Giants COULD’VE picked VH3. He was on the board. If after months of PROFESSIONAL scouting, they decide Apple is the better prospect, who the heck are we to argue with them??
Meanwhile, all of this “we should’ve taken VH3 and/or traded back to take Apple later” is 100% based on the fan side of the draft process. If the Giants had Apple as their best CB, then odds are some other teams did too!
As for Tunsil… between the fact that the Giants like “high character/smart guys” and that there was always some questions about Tunsil holding up in NFL pass protection, I can understand going elsewhere. We’ll be *ok* if we had to use Newhouse again (8th best offense last year, with an injured Flowers and no Hart on the line), but the real concern is 1 injury on the OLine and they get really bad really fast.
I agree. I was initially thinking the same that the Giants sort of overreached at #10. Then again, I always thought that if you have a team with certain needs the projected players in front of your pick and maybe behind you didn’t match your needs then why not draft the player who matches your needs? Regardless of a player like Apple was projected to be a mid teen pick. Ultimately who cares? Five years in the future, we will then find out if it was a reach, a bust or a perfect pick. Now with that said, Giants do need a RT badly. Hopefully the Anthony Davis rumors are true.
I have no idea where you heard that the Dolphins would’ve taken Apple if he was there, but you are insane if you think the Dolphins were taking him over Tunsil. Tunsil was one of the Dolphins top players and they never thought it was remotely possible that one of the premier prospects at a position of need would fall to them, but when it happened, they were pulling the trigger. I also don’t know where you heard that there were questions about his ability as a pass protector. There were questions about his nastiness and willingness as a run blocker, but I’ve never heard so much as a peep about doubts as a pass protector.
I agree, I think they would’ve still taken Tunsil. And unfortunately I don’t have any direct sources, but I believe the notion was they would’ve taken Apple [if Tunsil were taken in the Top-12 as would’ve almost certainly happened before the hack] and/or that he was their highest rated CB.
Again dunno if this is true, but I really don’t find it hard to believe that the actual experts preferred the younger/bigger/faster/better-vs-run to the smaller but further developed Hargreaves. Like everyone else, I was enamored with VHIII predraft. But seeing the reactions from people in-the-know post draft has quickly changed my beliefs. That and fandom of course 🙂
Now the Giants will have two players named Eli who specialize in interceptions.
Ba-ZING!
Don’t insult landon and his hands. Honestly though I was really excited about Darian Thompson, that BJ (lol) guy and Shepard. Still, apple is almost a wasted pick with the Jenkins signing. Feels like they’re counting on DRC to get hurt again.
Actually it’s not entirely about them drafting a replacement for Jenkins or DRC as much as expanding their playback to have three quality CBs on the field at the same time.
3rd corner is not their biggest need and there would be no reason to invest in it with linebackers still in that awful of a situation.
GO BUCKS! Eli Apple will be great
http://www.thedrawplay.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/JasonSpriggs.png
I want to take this, put it in a frame and then hang it on the wall
I was at the draft during the first two day. The second day, I was in the theatre, however I was outside watching the first round like it was a concert. There were TV monitors and speakers everywhere.
When we got the news that Chicago traded up two spots with Tampa Bay in exchange for a 4th rounder, we went batshit crazy. Mind you, nobody knew about the Tunsil video, so we all scratched our heads at him slipping. He was the best player available, with Vernon Haergraves being the second best. The Bears needed both of those positions, and yet we take neither of them.
We drafted Leonard Floyd, and there were no cheers to be heard. “WTF Pace” I thought, “BPA might mean ‘don’t draft based on need’, but it doesn’t mean “draft who you don’t need at all.’ Look at us! We’re the Rams now! You can’t put all your eggs in the pass rush basket!” Most experts had us drafting him at our original 11 spot.
I checked my phone and found out that the Giants wanted to draft Floyd before we did, and that’s why we swapped spots with our Eskimo brothers (Tampa Bay.) I thought “Ohhh, so strategic! Can’t let the Giants be good again, right? As if they aren’t going to have the same record as us again. Here Bucs, FETCH! Go 7-9 with this 4th round pick.”
But again, I didn’t know about Leremy Tunsil dancing with Mary Jane. It began to make more sense. If the Giants drafted Leonard Floyd, and the Buccaneers drafted Vernon Haergraves, who do we get? We have struck out too many times on Left Tackles to take a guy with any red flags. Again, while I expected us to draft Leonard Floyd in the 11th spot, Tunsil-gate caused a domino effect causing crazy shit to happen. Like Joey Bosa going third.
It shouldn’t matter that we traded away a fourth rounder, because in the second round we made a few trades to get back some more 4th round picks. We mostly drafted secondary, and draft position usually isn’t that important with them as it is with other positions.
I’m also hearing that Vernon Haergraves isn’t a good fit for some teams with his small arms and such. The Giants just seemed to know Eli Apple better.
I’m trying to figure out what the nickname for Keanu Neal should be. My favorites are The One, Wild Stallion and Kam Chancelbro.
Just waiting for a comic about Skip Bayless leaving
Finally a Jags win! Albeit in the draft but a win nonetheless.
Jalen Ramsey & Myles Jack!? I’m still waking up with that “I got everything I wanted for Christmas and I get to play with it because don’t have to go back to school for a week” kind of feeling.