In defense of Jerry Reese, and the Giants' draft philosophy

Also, look at the quality of undrafted players that the Giants have coming out to the mini camp. I think they did a great job of not reaching for any players and being patient.

I agree that trading for trading’s sake is pointless. And I am also of the belief that trading up because you have targeted a special player (one exception perhaps is QB) is more often than not a mistake. But I do think the Giants should be more creative about trading down.

Let’s look at what one of the most trade happy teams, the dreaded Eagles did in this draft. They started with 10 picks including 5 in the first three rounds. A potentially awesome haul in a deep draft. Then they made what I thought was a blunder trading their 24th pick along with their two third round picks to move up to 13 to take Brandon Graham. They used their second round pick to take a good player at a position of need, and then repeatedly traded their late second round pick, getting an additional third round pick, 3 fourth round picks another 6th round pick and a sixth round pick in 2011. In all despite sacrificing three picks for one, they got 13 picks overall, and the odds are that most of those third and fourth round players are going to make their squad. Now they may not have made the best choices, and they could have stood pat and had a fine draft. But they had the luxury of spending a lot to get a targeted player (a mistake in my book) and then being able to avoid the putting al their eggs in one basket problem by getting multiple picks later. If your draft board shows that there are players of equivalent value to you below your position you get the benefit of extra picks by trading down. Reese has more often as you point out been a guy to trade up for a targeted player and I think that has not been particularly helpful. If he traded down some two, he’s get extra picks which would allow him the freedom to move up when he wants without cutting into the overall number of picks we get.

Of course in the end, if you are good at analyzing talent, you’ll do well trades or no trades and vice versa. But more picks means more opportunities to hit, especially in those later rounds when the differences between players and their potential for success is harder to predict.

to see this Jy Bond punt, hey he is use to hitting people without pads too.

I must admit, I don’t like Drafted players not making the team.
Last year when we had 11 picks, you just had to knwo that the late rounders were not going to make the team. So, I saw a chance to trade a 6th or a 7th, for a 5/6 in the next draft (this year). That would have made sense for me.

But I agree, trading for the sake of trading is useless.
I do like the idea of trading back with some team that falls in love with a player.

If it is there.. do it, if not, don’t reach for a pick, or a trade.

besides bringing in competition on the first two picks, they also brought in some physicality..Joseph, Jones, Petrus, maybe Dillard? Heck as Free mentioned, even the damn punters…Did Feagles officially retire this week, haven’t heard?

While I’d certainly like more picks especially if it comes at the cost of desperate teams making bad choices coughChicagocoughCarolinacough, I don’t think Reese deserves any kind of fault for not trading up or down. Honestly considering the potential haul he may have gotten with this group, I’m glad we didn’t trade up. Aside from trading up to get McClain, I can’t see any pick being worth it, and even if we had done that we essentially would have drafted a MLB at the cost of depth for our DLine and/or Safety.

Personally I’m very optimistic about this draft. I think that Joseph and Pierre-Paul will be starts on this team in the future, and Jones could be a steal. I’d be happy if Petrus serves as back up (anything to knock Guy Whimper off the team. He’s totally ruining our cool player name mojo), and Tracy & Dillard serve as back ups for their positions. Heck if Matt Dodge doesn’t make the team, at least we drafted a position of need. I’m very pleased with this draft and arguing about what Reese could have done seems like a wasted effort.

Agree 100% Ed.Why trade just to trade?Another thing I hate is when everyone wants to fire a head coach.I always ask the same question, who are you going to replace them with.If you can’t answer with someone who is better why make the move?

I for one am happy they stood their ground..at 15, what the heck would we expect to get?..I think teams that A) Don’t do their homework going into a draft or B) Get too enamered with one particular player, fail..I do disagree with you on Barden..Frankly, we didn’t need him last year as it turned out..they gave that future star a year to ready himself and I think he will be huge for us this year..We can look back and say “What about the defense?”..Well..how the heck did they know that we would break the world record for injuries?..Every coaches fear is injuries..and injuries get compounded by the fact that our would-be back-ups were also injured..We had injuries to starters on both sides of the ball..Even Boss was hurt (but of course he’s like that guy who drank beer from a helmet bong on Porky’s Revenge..so God only knows what to think about him..he gets hit by a mack truck and stands up..shakes his head until his eyes square back up and trots back on the field)..The only healthy guy we had on the sideline was Coughlin and even he looked like he was still suffering from the aftermath of frost-bite he got from the Green Bay play-off.

The idea that trading is a valuable tool is accurate but you have to use the tool when it makes sense. You can’t pull out the circular saw to hammer in a nail. Jr has traded before in previous drafts and probably explored trade this draft. He does use the tools so I qam not certain what they are talking about. Trading up for Mclain to get above the raider would have cost too much. Trading back when there is a player available that you want that may not be there later make no sense. Jr didn’t reach. Who wants two lesser player for a good player you want at where u pick?

JR knows his stuff. So do our scouts. No reason to believe that this draft will be a bust and if nothing else, it will certainly light a fire under our defensive veterans. I like the massive upside that pretty much every player seems to have, as opposed to reaching for “the sure thing” that we all know is no guarantee. That being said, I still wish we got Sean Lee… But looking at Bill Belichick as a benchmark is just dumb. I mean he’s a wizard. How he pulls this shit off is beyond me. The eagles though had so many compensatory/back stab trade picks that it was hard not to make moves.

In JR we trust. The giants are going to tear it up.

I’m not ready to bow down and kiss Reese’s feet quite yet. Honestly, the Reese love seems to lack objectivity. He has only three dratfs under his belt which makes it very difficult to judge him good or bad. I persoannly don’t put much stock in the statistics about how many players are still on the team. Mediocre players get to stay on and even start for medicore teams. Note, I’m not necessarily calling us mediocre but simply pointing out the statistic doesn’t say much. Reese also tends to hold onto guys on the roster for longer than many other teams would (see Sinorice Moss) which alters that stat. Reese gets a lot of credit for the 2007 season, but that may be undue credit. He let walk some of the players that were on the roster that year (James Butler, Kawika Mitchell for example) because he believed he could do better, yet those positions turned into areas of weakness for the team. You also have to question did Reese do that good of a job with personnel in 2007 or did Spags do that good of a job getting the most out of the personnel he had? During that playoff run our safeties at one point were Michael Johnson and Craig Dahl. That should have made the position theoretically as weak as it was last year, but Spags got much more production out of his crew than BS could. If we look at last years draft it doesn’t look great so far. Sintim made zero impact, Beckum zero impact, Barden zero impact, Brown zero impact. Beatty filled in some at RT and we all hope he can be the future at LT, but we learned he isn’t the future at RT. Nicks is the only player from last years draft that made an impact. Add the DT FA flops and last year really doesn’t look good for Reese. Let’s hope this year turns out better, but I’m not as ready as some of you to declare Reese the best GM before it has really been proven.

that means that 68 ‘teams’ made trades. The Giants were NONE of those 68 team-trades. PLEASE…so you make trades just because other teams are making trades. I would think a smart man make trades if it makes sense and you are getting the right fit for your team, if its not there or don’t make sense then you find other ways to find the missing pieces to complement your team.

I would like to look at this trade question in view of what I think is Reese’s two-part draft strategy. First, he wants to draft good players and create competition at all positions. Second, he wants to staff his backup and special teams with low-salary rookies and UDFAs. Usually most of the nonstarters are still in their original contracts (some were effectively extended at low tenders this year because of the lack of a CBA). Only the players who have established starting value, like Jacobs, get big extensions; the others are let go at the end of their contracts and replaced with new rookies and UDFAs. The best players are found, of course in the early rounds, but having a steady supply of decent backups/ ST players requires hanging on to the later round picks as well. If I am correct, his strategy discourages the use of later round picks to trade up in the early rounds.
To me, a successful trade down requires two things:
First, another team has to want a player that you don’t want, and want that player badly enough to give you value in exchange. Second, you should have a player or players in mind that you expect to be available at the lower pick. If you can get the value and get the player, fine. If not, you have rolled the dice and lost. The more specific you are about the players you want, the harder it is to assume availability.
Looking at the Giants’ picks, and assuming they got the players they wanted, it’s hard to see where they had much room to trade down and get the same players.
Of course I don’t know the mind of Reese (who does) and may be totally wrong – and those who think I am wrong will certainly point that out :) – but based on what we have seen in the draft and on the roster, I think this explanation of the lack of trades makes sense.
A logical corollary of this strategy would be that draft choices would stay on the team for the duration of their rookie contracts (or close) not just for development purposes but also because of their role as cheap special team players, and I think that is exactly what we see. For that reason, I expect Adrian Tracy to make the team.

the eagles went into the draft with 10 picks and traded multiple times and ended up picking 13 players. now what does that accomplish if most likely not even 10 of these guys will make the team?

Trades don’t make one aggressive or better, like any good poker player, a GM must play to his strengths.

Reese is a great collegiate talent evaluator, we’ll see soon with Boley, Canty and Rolle how he is on the pro side. But right now, he’s letting his draft skills work for him.

As he develops relationships with other GMs, he might get in on a fire sale trade or 2.

Hi this is Andy from UltimateNYG.

I think I qualified the opinion pretty well. I do not believe in trading for trading’s sake. THAT WAS STATED VERY CLEARLY.

Do you believe it is POSSIBLE to make trades that MAKE SENSE?

When you see the Patriots trade their #3 pick this year for a #2 pick next year, don’t you want to make THAT trade? And it was the 89th pick in the draft. So you have to be flexible enough and willing to LISTEN to deals. The Patriots made the same trade two years ago as well. How would you like to be starting with 1224567 while everyone else is starting with 1234567? That is not a fair fight.

Please admit that this is an example of how you have to be WILLING to make a trade if it MAKES SENSE. There is enough opportunity out there.

The FACT that there is another day in the draft means there are only going to be MORE situations where trading CAN make sense.

No, I do not play fantasy football. I just know that trading is not going away, and it cannot be ignored.

You know what, I am one of those guys who wondered what the hell we are doing taking a DE in the first round, and I could not believe we stood pat with all those picks last year and did not pick up either Edwards or Bolden.

BUT i am also objective enough to say that Reeses draft record to date has earned the him the right to say “shut yer yap” to those of us who think we know better.

For all the knucklehead backseat drivers out there, if all your picks were put under a microscope every year, I doubt any of us could do much better. Hindsight is always 20/20.