INDIANAPOLIS — Now it gets serious.
There are still two months before the 2024 NFL Draft, but the NFL Scouting Combine this week can be viewed as the unofficial soft opening to the most important event on the league calendar every year.
You want to turn your team around? Draft well. You want to become a playoff contender? Draft smart. You want to win a Super Bowl? Draft great.
The Giants will be here in force — their front office and coaching staff hunkered down for all sorts of fact-finding missions. General manager Joe Schoen will meet with the media Tuesday morning.
There are 20 head coaches scheduled to speak during their time at the Combine but Brian Daboll is not among them. He did not talk at this event last year, either, when he was the freshly minted NFL Coach of the Year. Daboll believes public comments in the offseason fall under Schoen’s domain.
Here is what the Giants need to get accomplished this week in Indy:
Table talk
If it was up to the Giants — and most teams — the labor inherent in negotiating deals would already be underway via the normal long-distance communication. Agents like to wait and meet in person so then they can try to shop the numbers with other teams that are assembled in Indy. Thus, face-to-face meetings with representatives for Saquon Barkley and Xavier McKinney will take place.
For Barkley, this is in some way a continuation of a tiresome pursuit that started during the bye week in 2022, with several offers and proposals along the way eventually shot down by Barkley and his camp. This is all new for McKinney, as his four-year rookie deal has expired; this is his first foray into seeking a new deal. Given what has gone down with Barkley in the past and McKinney’s expected top-tier financial demands, it will be no surprise if the Giants leave town no closer to an agreement with either player.
Passer ratings
The Giants already have reams of information and analysis on the top quarterbacks in this draft. Next comes the more personal touch. These interviews are critical for all players, especially at this position, where leadership traits, the ability to learn on the fly and show poise under pressure are vital ingredients for success. This is not only about Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye, as those three top prospects could be off the board by the time the Giants are on the clock at No. 6 — unless they opt to go for broke with a costly trade-up.
Daboll made his mark in the NFL working with quarterbacks and he recently gave promotions to offensive coordinator Mike Kafka and quarterbacks coach Shea Tierney. With these three coaches in the room, the Giants should come away with strong intel on Bo Nix, Michael Penix Jr. and J.J. McCarthy.
Networking
All the general managers converge in Indy for the week and there will be all sorts of in-the-shadows dialogue as the seeds of future transactions are planted. It is a bit early in the process to actually make draft-related trades. A month from now, at the NFL Owners Meeting in Orlando the last week of March, things really get cooking, as far as trade discussions.
This week, Schoen will chat with agents about what some of the Giants’ own impending free agents might be thinking. The Giants have 24 soon-to-be unrestricted free agents and they want to bring some — but not most — of them back, at the right price.
What’s up, doc?
A huge part of this week is the accumulation of medical reports on scores of players participating at the Combine. The height, weight, vertical jump, 40-yard dash, hand size and pretty much everything that can measure an athlete’s physical prowess is assessed this week.
There are also MRI reports and updates on surgeries, past injuries and any potential red flags that would take a player off or lower him on the draft board. Players will opt out of participating in certain tests and there is always speculation and at times innuendo attached to these defections — sometimes fair, sometimes not.
Meet and greet
If the Giants want one of the top two wide receivers in this draft after Marvin Harrison Jr., they are almost definitely in position to get him. There is no way three wideouts will be taken in the first five picks, so Malik Nabers of LSU or Rome Odunze of Washington will be on the board for the Giants. Perhaps both will be there. This is the time to really dig in on these guys, making personal connections, asking them the tough questions, giving them route-running scenarios and offensive concepts in the film room and evaluating how they respond.
The same holds true for the top offensive tackles — Joe Alt (Notre Dame), Olu Fashanu (Penn State) and Taliese Fuaga (Oregon State). Judging the NFL-readiness and competitive spirit of the big guys is hard work. The Giants might have gotten this wrong two years ago with Evan Neal and mistakes this high in the first round are real setbacks.
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