The One First-Round Draft Scenario the Giants MUST Avoid

Unexpected things have been known to happen in the draft, and a recent study suggests the Giants might want to avoid one particular Round 1 scenario.

The Giants need to come out of this year's draft with an offensive tackle, and preferably, that tackle will be selected in the first round with Pick No. 5.

But assuming the Giants don't trade down from No. 7, could they throw a monkey wrench into the pot and eschew taking a defensive back or an edge rusher and instead go with--wait for it--a receiver?

If history has taught us anything, the draft is always full of surprises that no one outside the building saw coming and that the team's brass doesn't necessarily view prospects the way the fans and media do.

Okay, so why even think about a receiver? If history is any indication, the new Giants offense will be heavily based on an 11-personnel set (one running back, one tight end, and three receivers).

Last year, the Bills offense, as coordinated by now Giants head coach Brian Daboll, finished fifth in the league in 11-personnel formation deployment (71 percent). At the same time, the Chiefs, who had current Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka on staff, were eighth (67 percent).

The Giants, who hoped to infuse some explosiveness to the offense via Kenny Golladay and Kadarius Toney, ran 11-personnel 61 percent of the time but had a 39 percent success rate (the Bills were at 52 percent and the Chiefs at 55 percent).

Moreover, with the Giants receiver position likely headed for a change as soon as after this season--both Sterling Shepard and Darius Slayton aren't signed beyond this year--adding another explosive receiver to a passing game in dire need of help would seem like a given, right?

Sure--but history suggests it would be unwise, despite some first-round talent in this year's draft--to wait.

Recently, RotoHeat ran a highly informative deep dive into the historical data on wide receiver prospects drafted as far back as 2010 and the corresponding “hit rates” of those prospects.

According to the site, the term “hit rate” when applied to the wide receiver position entails “any wide receiver that has delivered a top-12/24/36 season at any point in their career.”

The goal of the review was to see how accurate draft analysts have been when it comes to their labels of “can’t miss prospects” on wide receivers in the last decade.

For the first two draft rounds, the results show it’s more often a larger gamble than reward to select a wide receiver and expect a long-term, All-Pro caliber career out of them.

Beginning with the second round in the 2016 to 2020 drafts, 25 receivers were selected, a group including Michael Thomas, D.K. Metcalf, A.J. Brown, Juju Smith-Schuster, and Chase Claypool.

Of those 25 receivers, only 13 have given their teams a hit season, and an even smaller pack of six players (24 percent) have done it multiple times to become what RotoHeat coined a “Super-Hit” or “Mega Hit” prospect.

Going back to the 2010 draft, the numbers become more restricted. Of 24 wide receivers selected in the second round during that span, nine have tallied 38 of the group’s hit seasons, and only four have multiple top-12 seasons.

While the first rounds since 2010 have been chock-full of top-tier collegiate wide receiver talent--and this year’s class is no different with multiple names expected to go on Day 1--the inclination to become a draft-day dud is still there.

From 2016 to 2020, 17 wide receivers have been taken in the first round, and nine of them have reached hit status for at least one season in their careers. That is 53 percent, a decent number. But the top-12 seasons are much more disappointing, with only two (Calvin Ridley and Justin Jefferson) within that span.

Likewise, between 2010 and 2015, there were 23 wide receivers selected in the first round, and that span saw 17 deliver at least one hit season, but only eight of those surpassed the top-12 mark, according to RotoHeat.

Seven members in the last five years have reached multiple hit seasons and “Mega-Hit” status, one of them notably being former Giant receiver Odell Beckham Jr.

Surely, the data can go beyond these limitations, but the point is there have been 157 wide receivers taken over the last five NFL drafts, with a total of 15 in the top-12, 17 in the top-24, and 16 in the top-36 or better season finishes.

Only 10 of the aforementioned players (6.4 percent) were responsible for those 15 top-12 finishes, with two selected in the first round while eight were chosen in the first three.

Yes, it is possible to land a game-changing prospect at wide receiver that becomes a team’s long-term, All-Pro caliber receiving threat. However, the data shows it has become harder to do so, and the chances of a receiver selected being a “hit” beyond his rookie contract are relatively low.

Given their current depth on the roster and the new offensive regime, the Giants should focus their first-round draft capital on glaring needs such as offensive tackle, edge, and defensive back, and not risk chasing the next Odell Beckham Jr. 

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