What on earth you might ask, is a Thursday Mock Around? Well that is fairly simple, its my obsessive draft based post of course.  Why Thursday, well, its my day off, so it makes sense to me, so ha. The season is not yet half over, we do not know nearly enough about who will be drafted, where they will be drafted, or who will draft them, but lets not worry about that, were all obsessive enough anyway.

In terms of our Giants, there seems to be no true consensus among many of us here, and those that actually do mock drafts this early in terms of the needs of the team (even if Jerry has a habit of not really worrying about need). There are places mocking us to take anyone from Mark Ingram to Stefen Wisniewski. 

Personally i feel that the area that would seem the most logical to look toward would be our OL, however in the first round in particular there are not a ton of high end talents to choose from, and with Reese's time honored practice of not selecting need over BPA, i would expect that the Oline would get more attention in the 2nd and 3rd round, instead of the first. So where does that leave us in terms of a first round pick, QB is out, WR is out, DE is ALWAYS a possibility with this team, DT will depend on the status of what they choose to do with Bernard and Coefield, but the spot in particular i will look too in this post is OLB.

There are three OLBs at this point most regarded in the area of the draft where the jints will be picking, they are as follows

Bruce Carter - OLB - UNC - 6'3" 230lbs

Lets start with the OLB from UNC shall we, seems to have worked before.  Bruce Carter is your prototypical 4-3 OLB, possessing both coverage ability and run stuffing skills. Going into the year he was one of many highly regarded players on UNC's defense, but with suspensions and other issues, he has excelled while playing with many backups.

Travis Lewis - OLB - Oklahoma - 6'2" 232

Travis Lewis is another highly regarded 4-3 LB prospect from the university of Oklahoma. Lewis projects as a very good run stuffing LB on the next level, as he is very adept at shedding blocks and getting to the ball. The biggest drawback to his game at this point is his pass coverage as he has a habit of getting lost in zone coverage and has been known to take bad angles.

Greg Jones - OLB - Michigan State - 6'1" 228

Greg Jones is almost the opposite of Travis in terms of how they play. This Lewis is projected by many to test out as the fastest of the linebackers that will available in the 2011 draft. He has natural speed and agility, and the ability to play sideline to sideline, but does not possess the same run stuffing abilities as the other two linebackers listed here.

There are a few other LB's that fall into the projected range of the Giants top draft pick slot (Von Miller, Akeem Ayers, etc) but im choosing to focus on those that are pure 4-3 LB's because well, I'm writing this, and the square peg round hole 3-4 linebacker in a 4-3 scheme does not appeal to me.

So, what do you folks think? I know many want to go the route of OL, but like i said, i see many more Center and OG's that i would give a 2nd/3rd round grade too, than those i would take in the first round, but hey, what do i know