D
New York Giants
Best value of the weekend goes to the Giants for Gray: D.
by jkase ·
2024 NFL Draft
· 19 picks
· 11 steals
· 1 reaches
The board owed the Giants one, and it paid up: Cedric Gray, the No. 116 name on the board, sitting there at slot 183 like a gift left on the doorstep. Put together, it is a D.
They lost the exchange badly enough to drag the whole class down. Rattler has a lot of ground to make up just to look fairly priced. The Giants clearly valued win-now help, adding bodies who have done it before.
Bottom line, they will need several of these picks to beat their grades just to break even.
Pick-by-Pick
In No. 21 they get a weapon on the perimeter at fair value. It fills the loudest need on the roster.
In the 24th overall pick they get a ballhawk on the outside. A clean fit for the roster.
In pick No. 25 they get juice off the edge. A real need, handled.
In the Round 1 slot they get a cornerstone up front, and a steal at that. The biggest hole, addressed.
They robbed the room for Quinyon Mitchell here, a fall nobody at the table saw coming. A sensible fit for a spot that needed help.
Ladd McConkey at the 42nd pick is the sort of value that quietly wins a weekend. Top of the wish list, and they did not leave without it.
The board had Ja'Tavion Sanders higher than Round 2, Pick 14, and the tight end fell to them anyway. It shores up a spot that genuinely needed the help.
A interior defensive lineman of that caliber at slot 47 is the definition of value, full stop. A must-fix position, and they treated it like one.
Terrion Arnold in the 56th overall pick is the kind of fall that makes a whole class. A need, and now a little less of one.
Xavier Worthy at slot 60 is right where the board had him, plain and simple. That was the need underlined and circled, and now it is checked off.
Jaylen Wright at No. 70 is neither steal nor reach, just the going rate. A sensible fit that makes the depth chart a little sturdier.
Amarius Mims at the Round 3 slot is daylight robbery; nobody expected him to last. They walked in needing this and walked out with it.
Nothing to complain about; Jeremiah Trotter Jr. went a shade earlier than his grade, which is fine. Depth more than a fix, but depth they can use.
They barely believed it either: Malachi Corley still on the board at pick 87. It answers the question that was keeping the coaches up at night.
A straight-up fair deal on Dadrion Taylor-Demerson at pick No. 88, value and slot in agreement. The one spot they could not leave alone, and did not.
They liked Spencer Rattler enough to skip the value, taking him in the 107th pick. It fills a real need, too.
The board fumbled Jonah Elliss all the way to the 134th overall pick, and they scooped it up. It plugs a real leak on the depth chart.
A top-tier offensive lineman at a bargain, Dominick Puni in pick No. 141, plain and simple. The biggest hole on the depth chart just got a whole lot smaller.
Taking Cedric Gray in slot 183 is close to grand larceny; a linebacker that good had no business lasting this long. They doubled down on a strength rather than a need.