Giants GM Jerry Reese has made some very interesting off season moves, even though most people would tend to think that they are boring, under-the-radar kind of stuff. Ah.... but that's exactly what Reese and the Giants like to do. They strongly believe that the best way to build a team is with the core of your team, your best players coming through the draft. You use free agency to fill in the holes as needed. That is not to say that the Giants won't sign a high priced FA from time to time. Giants have done it in recent years with Antrel Rolle, Chris Canty and Michael Boley. They did it in past years as well with signing Burress, O'Hara, MacKenzie and a few others. But even though these were more expensive FAs, they are still filling gaps in the roster that were not built from the draft. This strategy of building through the draft is even more beneficial now under the new CBA where there is a rookie salary cap, meaning the drafted players can stay under the team's control at a more moderate salary for those first 4 or 5 years of their career.
The other part of the Reese mantra is never to draft for specific need, especially in the first few rounds. As he likes to say it: "never bring your depth chart into the draft room". With this philosophy, it is easy to see why Reese signed TE Bennet, Thomas at CB, a few other CBs and S's. He let go Ross and Deon Grant at S and needed to fill those holes so he would be completely unencumbered in the draft and could draft the best players regardless of position even in the middle rounds. There are virtually no crying needs on this team, demanding attention in the draft. Giants need to backfill for the losses of Manningham and Jacobs, to be sure, but there is always lots of good talent in the draft at those positions and the Giants can fill those needs without reaching for a player at an inappropriate draft slot.
It's very interesting to see what Reese did in the defensive front 7 to get a clue as to what might happen there. Last year the Giants drafted several young LBs, all of whom made the team, got playing time and are well thought of by the team. Herzlich, Williams, Paysinger and Jones should fight for playing time along with returning vet Boley at the LB position. Giants also re-signed last year's MLB emergency fill-in hero, Chase Blackburn and have Clint Sintim returning from injury. Giants did not lose any LBs who got playing time last year, but did lose DE Dave Tollefson, who was a capable backup and was in the regular DE rotation, even when Osi came back from injury. Yet, instead of signing a DE to replace Tollefson, Giants instead signed Keith Rivers to compete yet more for playing time at what appears to be a very crowded LB group. The obvious question from a personnel perspective is: where is Matthias Kiwanuka, one of the most talented pure athletes on the team, going to get his snaps, his playing time from. What if Herzlich and Williams emerge as true starters or even stars? Kiwanuka's minutes will be diminished and that is a poor use of personnel. The obvious answer is to move Kiwanuka up to the DE rotation and get him away from the crowded, talented LB corps. That would then mean that the Giants are 4-deep at DE and, while they like to have lots of DEs, it might be a waste of resource to have quite so much invested at that position. It might make sense to trade Osi for a high draft pick, or to use him to move up higher in the draft if there is a player that the Giants particularly like. Giants don't like to waste draft picks and move up in the draft, although I seem to recall them doing it with some success back in 2004. Nevertheless, moving up for better draft position by trading a player instead of trading draft picks might be less distasteful to Reese.
I am not saying they should do it; keeping Osi around for another year is somewhat appealing. Further, this might not be the year to try and move up, because the draft is kind of flat: there is not a great deal of difference in the talent past the top 10-15 or so players, through maybe the bottom of the 2nd round. But with the Giants having depth on their roster, finding that one great player instead of filling the roster with volume seems like an intelligent approach.
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