The Giants had Ohio State star Arvell Reese fall into their laps at No. 5 in the draft. Then at No. 10, Downs was sitting right there. The Cowboys had tried to trade up to No. 9 to get Downs, fearful that the Giants would take him. New York could have come out of the first round of the draft feeling like it had locked down two defensive cornerstones for a decade to come.<\/p>\n
Instead, the Giants drafted offensive tackle Francis Mauigoa. Dallas exhaled and moved up one spot to make sure it got Downs. And now the Giants will have to play against him twice a year.<\/p>\n
So why didn\u2019t they take him? Well, they felt like they\u2019d made their defensive pick at No. 5 when Reese was still there. I think there\u2019s a chance they\u2019d have taken Downs at No. 5 if Reese had been picked in the top four. But what became clear to me after the draft in talking to people around that situation is that the Giants were determined to use one of their two top-10 picks on an offensive player in an effort to support second-year quarterback Jaxson Dart. That could have meant running back Jeremiyah Love if he\u2019d been there at No. 5. It could have meant wide receivers Carnell Tate or Jordyn Tyson if they\u2019d been there at No. 10. Ultimately, it meant locking in the player the Giants identified as the best offensive lineman in the draft to help fortify Dart\u2019s protection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Giants had Ohio State star Arvell Reese fall into their laps at No. 5 in the draft.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":791264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[227648,211198,1232,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-791263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-new-york-giants-discussion","9":"tag-new-york-giants-draft","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116562128413344313","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}