Gettleman, Giants weigh options with No. 2 pick

INDIANAPOLIS — The last time the New York Giants had the No. 2 overall pick in the draft was in 1981.

That year, they were able to acquire North Carolina defensive end/outside linebacker Lawrence Taylor, who of course developed into a Hall of Fame player and who virtually changed the game with his relentless play.

Thirty-seven years later, the Giants are once again slotted to draft second overall.

The question, assuming the Giants do stay put at No. 2, is who fits that descriptor of “Hall of Fame” worthy?

There are many analysts who believe the Giants would be foolish to not come away from this year’s draft with a new franchise quarterback to eventually succeed Eli Manning, even though both general manager Dave Gettleman and new head coach Pat Shurmur have both committed to Manning for 2018 — and possibly beyond.

“I tell you what; it is an interesting class,” Gettleman said of this year’s quarterbacks class. “All shapes and sizes, all flavors. This is like Howard Johnson back in the day. It is a real interesting group.”

But if the general manager had a clear favorite of the group, he wasn’t tipping his hand.

“I’m excited about meeting some of these guys here. It is going to be fun. Obviously, we will be busy once the Combine is over, visiting. You have your 30 visits. That will be part of the process. It is a really interesting group.”

So what will they be looking for when they meet with the quarterbacks?

“Well, you’re trying to look for all of the intangible things that a quarterback does,” Shurmur said. “You want to try to determine whether he’s a good decision-maker, whether he has a sense of timing. The tape tells you whether he’s an accurate passer or not. And then you just want to get a feel for, ‘Hey, is this the guy that we want to lead our team?'”

As the Giants brass gathers all that information, they will also weigh it against what they have in second-year man Davis Webb, last year’s third-round draft pick.

Webb, out of Cal, didn’t get into any regular-season games as a rookie, but he’s not about to fade quietly into the background. The youngster has remained in East Rutherford this offseason, working mostly with Manning, tight end Evan Engram and any of the receivers who happen to pass through the team’s facility.

Meanwhile, Gettleman and Shurmur have gathered up all the film that does exist on Webb, mainly his college tape and last year’s practice tapes, and have studied them.

“I like what I’ve seen in Davis Webb,” Shurmur said. “I went back and watched his tape again from college just to get reacquainted with him. I liked what I saw on tape when he played. I had a chance to watch his practice tape, which has been terrific. We just don’t have a large sample size of Davis Webb playing NFL football, but I’m excited about what he brings to the table.”

Which is?

“Well, you can see him drop back and throw and make the right reads and just all of those things quarterbacks do,” Shurmur said.

In the end, don’t look to Gettleman to bow to the court of public opinion and take a quarterback because he can.

Just don’t expect Gettleman to force the pick.

“Obviously, I think about it. It is a monster puzzle that we are putting together,” Gettleman said. “There are other things that you have to look at as well. We know that if you don’t have a QB, it is going to be a long season. We know that. We will come to the right conclusion.”

Gettleman also didn’t rule out the possibility of trading down in the first round.

“Any decision I make is going to be in the best interest of the New York Giants, plain and simple,” he said. “If someone makes me an offer I can’t refuse, would I move back? It depends upon who is there.”

–To some, Giants receiver Odell Beckham Jr. has already begun making waves thanks to his response via Twitter in which he said he would be able to sit out the preseason.

But if anyone thinks that’s tied into Beckham’s contract, that isn’t necessarily the case.

Beckham, remember, is rehabbing from a broken ankle suffered in Week 5 of last season.

Shurmur, who hasn’t really been able to talk football with any of his players but who did have a introductory meeting with the receiver, said that Beckham is making “great progress” in his rehab.

Good enough for Beckham to be ready for training camp and even take some preseason snaps?

“I don’t know about the camp part of it yet,” Shurmur said at the Combine. “We haven’t really been able to discuss football and certainly we wouldn’t have talked about any participation in training camp. But no, we communicate on the surface like we have to with all our players, but we’ve developed a relationship that’s pretty sound.”

Shortly after Shurmur was introduced as the Giants new head coach, team co-owner John Mara was asked about the possibility of getting something done with Beckham’s contract this year.

“We will deal with that at the appropriate time. That is not necessarily right now,” he said. “I’ve said before many times that we want him to be a Giant. We will get something done at some point.

“I first want Pat to sit down with him and for them to have a good understanding of how we are going to act going forward. I have a lot of confidence that it will work out well, but we’ll see.”

Shurmur has already had a short introductory conversation with the 25-year-old Beckham, with more conversations sure to follow.

But it’s been no secret that Mara has been unhappy with Beckham’s histrionics that included last year’s forgettable touchdown celebration in a Week 3 loss to the Eagles in which Beckham mimicked a urinating dog, an act that caused Mara to summon Beckham to his office.

New general manager Dave Gettleman, speaking to reporters at the Combine, quickly shut down any questions regarding Beckham’s desire to get a new contract.

Beckham is currently set to enter the fifth-year option of his rookie deal, which will pay him $8.459 million in 2018.

“I do not talk about contracts or negotiations,” Gettleman said. “I believe it is personal between the club and the player. I’m not going to speculate. Just see what happens, that is all.”

–Just like fashion, certain draft trends tend to circle back into style.

In the NFL, a “fashion” statement that seems to be making a strong comeback is spending a top-10 draft pick on a running back.

After a two-year hiatus (2013-2014) in which teams drafting in the top 10 went away from drafting a running back, the trend picked up steam again in 2015, with the Rams plucking Todd Gurley No. 10 overall.

The following year, the Cowboys drafted Ezekiel Elliott with the fourth overall pick; last year, both the Jaguars and Panthers took running backs with their first picks. Jacksonville landed Leonard Fournette at No. 4 overall and Carolina grabbed Christian McCaffrey No. 8 overall.

This year, Penn State’s Saquon Barkley, 5-foot-11, 230 pounds, is widely regarded by draft analysts to be a franchise type of player talent in the mold of a Fournette, Elliott and Gurley.

According to NFLDraftScout.com, Barkley is currently ranked No. 2 on their list of top 1,000 draft-eligible prospects, right behind USC quarterback Sam Darnold.

Gettleman, the Panthers general manager when the team drafted McCaffrey last year at No. 8 overall, said this notion about teams wasting resources on a running back is hogwash.

“The bottom line: is the guy a football player? This whole myth of devaluing running backs, I find it kind of comical,” Gettleman said. “At the end of the day, if he’s a great player he’s a great player. It doesn’t matter what position it is.”

The Giants could certainly use a boost to their running game, which has ranked in the bottom third of the NFL in five of the last six seasons. Currently, the Giants have Orleans Darkwa, who finished as their leading rusher last year, set to hit free agency.

That’s why the Giants have a decision to make at running back. Do they keep the status quo and re-sign Darkwa to be a part of a rotation, or do they go all in on landing Barkley, a talent that could give them the jolt they desperately need in the ground game?

Gettleman didn’t have the answer to that question, but he did remind people that football is still a team sport.

“The other thing, sometimes, listening to (head coach) Pat (Shurmur), sometimes I think it gets lost in the sauce that football is the ultimate team game. Everybody has to understand that every player is important.

“That’s why when you are looking at the second pick in the draft like we are, the first thing we have to determine is: Is this guy worthy of being the second pick of any draft? Not just this year’s draft, but any draft? And then you make that determination and you move forward.”

Even if the team is loaded at the position?

“If he’s a great player I don’t care how stacked we are at that position, we’re taking him,” Gettleman said. “It’s all about accumulating talent.”