Giants Morning Report: Combine, Draft Dominate Headlines

Good morning, New York Giants fans! On-field workouts start Friday morning at the 2015 NFL Scouting Combine. Here is what you need to know:

• The complete TV, live streaming schedule
• Tight ends to watch during today's workouts
• Offensive linemen to watch during today's workouts

Scherff Stuff ... Because We Can't Help It

Did you miss our post about the fact that Scherff, at 290 pounds, was a high school quarterback. Watch the video. He was a pretty good one.

More importantly to present times, CBS Sports draft analyst Rob Rang said Thursday on 'Big Blue Kickoff Live' that Scherff is the safest offensive lineman in the 2015 NFL Draft and could be the best to come out of Iowa, which has a rich tradition of producing offensive linemen.

What position is Scherff be best-suited for? Iowa offensive line coach Brian Ferentz believes Scherff is a "four-spot guy" who could be better than former Hawkeye Marshal Yanda, a Pro Bowler with the Baltimore Ravens who has played both guard and tackle:

"Yanda has started a boatload of games at both tackles and shouldn't be able to play there. Produces anyways," Ferentz said. "Brandon is bigger, longer and more athletic."

More Draft Talk

NJ.com's Jordan Ranaan, in an interview with Bleacher Report, says the Giants would love to grab Florida defensive end Dante Fowler with the ninth overall pick, but he will probably be off the board before then.

John Schmeelk of Giants Insider had a couple of interesting interviews on Thursday, one with Giants coach Tom Coughlin and another with Giants BLESTO scout Chris Watts.

Syracuse offensive lineman Sean Hickey, who has met with the Giants, played with current Giant Justin Pugh and sees Pugh as a role model:

"[Pugh's] a real big influential player for me, especially early on in my career, how I kind of set up my pass blocking game was around him, his pass sets [were] one of the best pass sets that I've seen to this day in college football," Hickey said. "Very smooth, very clean, and I tried to model myself, when I was a young age, after his pass set and the way that he played the game and I thought that helped me in my career, he was a very big part of my career."

There are a plethora of quality running backs who will probably be selected in the first four rounds of this draft. Former NFL player Matt Chatham, writing for Football By Football, says it is time for NFL teams to stop de-valuing the running game:

As nice as it was to see Teddy Bridgewater show promise as a young passer in 2014, the loss of Adrian Peterson was the more marked net difference in the Viking offense compared to previous seasons. Cam Newton, Russell Wilson, and Colin Kaepernick are exciting and capable of the occasional big play in the passing game. But after several seasons, it's abundantly clear they all need to be forever matted to run-first offenses. Competence at quarterback paired with super-talented runners is the new winning formula that patiently awaits prescient NFL executives to embrace it.

This year's class of college running backs should help force some to this realization, because there are far more runners capable of changing the fortunes of an NFL offense with certainty than there are throwers able to do the same thing. And as it's still a buyer's market, somebody is going to get a great deal on a relatively low-dollar, four-year window to develop this philosophy.

It's a "throwing league" for only a few teams in the NFL. The rest need to get with the program and juice their running games. This year's combine provides the perfect opportunity to officially start the evaluation process down that road.