Dave Gettleman has backed Giants into boom-or-bust NFL draft
Dave Gettleman comes to Thursday night’s NFL draft as the New York Football Giants’ Sinatra — he will do it his way.
The burden of proof is on his shoulders now to climb out of this sinkhole he finds himself in and prove that his way is the right way. That he is the right man to fix the New York Football Giants.
“My plan,” Gettleman said at his introductory press conference at the end of 2017, “is to come in here every day and kick ass.”
He needs a kick-ass draft as much as any Giants general manager has needed one in quite a while. When you quit on talent, third-and-long gets here before you know it.
Gettleman has the sixth pick and the 17th picks and 12 picks in all and there is no better time than now for him to show up as George Young or Ernie Accorsi and steer his listing ship away from the iceberg that threatens this titanic rebuild.
Once again, he is confronted by this Franchise Quarterback Quandary that has confounded the franchise for too long.
Young delivered Phil SImms and Accorsi delivered Eli Manning and Gettleman’s legacy will be defined by whomever he finds to succeed Manning whenever he decides to find him.
The argument for now:
He might not be drafting this high again.
“You can’t say to yourself, ‘I’m going to get him next year,’” Gettleman said at the NFL combine. “You evaluate the QBs and you take the guy when the time is right. When you believe he is the guy and it’s the right spot. You can’t worry about the future.”
The rookie quarterback can redshirt, and who better to learn under than Manning?
The Giants wouldn’t be the only team desperate for a Class of 2020 quarterback.
The argument for later:
If you don’t have a conviction on a quarterback, you don’t draft one for the sake of drafting one.
The Quarterback Class of 2020 is much richer than this one.
Manning remains his quarterback.
“You pay pass rushers, you pay quarterbacks and you pay touchdown scorers,” Gettleman once said.
He doesn’t have any dangerous pass rushers, he is paying a 38-year-old quarterback and he has one touchdown scorer (Saquon Barkley) after trading away his other one (Odell Beckham) at a discount.
Gettleman has upgraded the offensive line, but must now find replacements for Beckham Jr., Landon Collins, Olivier Vernon, Damon Harrison and Eli Apple, and a right tackle.
And still, as he attempts to walk this tightrope between today and tomorrow, between short-term and long-term, he recognizes that when all is said and done, franchise quarterback trumps everything, and the alarm clock is ticking on the notion that it is negligent failing to implement a succession plan for a 38-year-old quarterback.
Failing to be George Young or Ernie Accorsi.
“No guts, no glory,” Gettleman said at the combine.
Young had the guts to draft Simms with the seventh pick of the 1979 draft. The glory came in Super Bowl XXI in Pasadena, and again when an injured Simms put the Giants in position for Jeff Hostetler to win Super Bowl XXV. Accorsi had the guts to trade for Manning on draft day with the Chargers. The glory came in Super Bowl XLII, and again in Super Bowl XLVI.
Gettleman likes to remind us that “Big people allow you to compete.” And so he will be looking for big people. Character people who fit his idea of culture. It is not lost on him that franchise quarterbacks allow you to compete, too. Until he finds one, Operation Kick Ass will have no chance.
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