John Harbaugh must end this tiresome NFL Draft cycle for the Giants | Politi

It is hard to screw up two top-10 picks — and, yet, that’s what Schoen did.

Neal is a bust. Thibodeaux is expendable. Sure, most observers — including this one — agreed with the picks at the time, but that doesn’t change the cold calculus. Had the Giants aced that 2022 opportunity, they wouldn’t have had to draft for these positions at the top of the draft. Of course, they wouldn’t be at the top of the draft, which is sort of the point.

This has to be the last time for the foreseeable future that the most important day of the year for the Giants comes in late April. If it isn’t, you can rest assured that Harbaugh’s smile won’t be as wide.

For now, though, it’s hard to blame him for being a little giddy. The Giants had Reese as the No. 1 player on their draft board, and much like a year ago when edge rusher Abdul Carter fell in their laps at the third pick, the value was too good to pass up.

This defense was ranked 28th overall in yards allowed per game (359.5) and 26th in points allowed (25.8) last season. If it isn’t in the top half of the league with what Harbaugh said “absolutely” should be an elite pass rush, something’s wrong.

“As soon as I settled down, that’s what I thought about,” Reese said when asked about the talent at his position. “Dang, you got Kayvon Thibodeaux. You got Brian Burns. You got Abdul Carter. That sounds like a great situation playing alongside those guys.”

The Giants also could have had one of Reese’s teammates at Ohio State. When they made their selection at No. 10, the pick acquired in the recent trade for defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, safety Caleb Downs was available. He was a player many draft experts thought the Giants might take at No. 5, and given the shaky backend of this defense, one who would have slotted into a start role immediately.

Instead, the Giants grabbed Mauigoa, a 6-foot-6, 329-pound lineman from Miami. When the rival Cowboys traded up a spot to take Downs at 11, it assured the decision to pass on the star safety would be revisited twice a season for the next decade or longer.

Schoen insisted the Giants were simply following their draft board, but it felt like they were making sure that quarterback Jaxson Dart and the offense received something from their first-round haul on Thursday. Mauigoa swore on national television that he was “ready to die” for Dart, who needs better pass protection to flourish.

Reese and Mauigoa will be penciled in as Day 1 starters, making the Giants much stouter up the middle than they were a year ago. That’s the benefit of picking at the top of the draft, a perch that Harbaugh rarely held during his 18 years with the Ravens.

The veteran head coach seemed downright tickled by the experience. If he’s sitting in that same spot a year from now, chances are, he’ll be just as jaded as everyone else in the room.

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