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After high-impact drafts, Giants can cruise

BY TOM ROCK | tom.rock@newsday.com

April 20, 2008

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Jerry Reese should be relaxed. The perks of the Super Bowl continue to roll in with a ring ceremony and White House visit looming. The Giants have no particularly glaring needs to fill in next weekend's draft and hold the relatively low-pressure 31st pick in the first round. He has a reputation - premature, perhaps, but there nonetheless - as an executive with a magic touch who in last year's quiet draft, selected a surprising number of key pieces in the title run.

So why the admitted anxiety?

This may be Reese's second draft as the Giants' general manager, but it's his first as just the GM. Last year, he was still taking care of the responsibilities of his previous title, director of player personnel. This year, he's still steering the ship and charting the course, but someone else is working the sextant and evaluating the conditions.

"I knew all the players pretty much on the board last year," Reese said this past week, admitting it was an advantage to have all of the information and decision-making ability inside one cranium. "I don't know quite as many guys [this year], and I'm still scrambling. Even after the meetings, I'm still watching players and watching tape trying to familiarize myself with some of the players."

The job of organizing the evaluation of hundreds of college players - and avoiding any icebergs - now falls to Marc Ross, the director of college scouting. He's the guy who has been running meetings, setting the Giants' board, decoding Wonderlics and 40s and anything else that possibly can be measured for a potential pro player.

The job had been Reese's for the past five drafts. The GM still is a huge part of the Giants' loop; he's just no longer standing in the middle of it.

"I'm not running the meetings like I've done in the past, and that's strange for me," he said. "It's been years since I haven't done that."

Those were good years for the Giants, too. While he was personnel director, the Giants drafted Osi Umenyiora, Brandon Jacobs, Mathias Kiwanuka and David Diehl. Last year's draft class - underappreciated in April but vital in January and early February - included Aaron Ross, Steve Smith, Michael Johnson, Kevin Boss and Ahmad Bradshaw.

When the Giants played the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, seven of the eight picks from the previous spring were on the active roster. Two of them were starters - Ross and Boss - Smith caught a crucial pass on the winning drive and Bradshaw led the team in rushing (with 45 yards, but he still led the team in rushing).

Now the task for the front office is pretty much the same as it is for the entire organization in 2008: Do it again.

Reese said he trusts Marc Ross and the rest of the scouting department. Still, it makes him a little uneasy to lack that hands-on experience. It's an exciting trepidation similar to what most people experience when shopping online for the first time.

"It always makes me a little anxious when you consider drafting guys that I haven't seen yet," he said.

Of course, there are some benefits.

"It's a lot of work. I don't miss all the work you have to put in to prepare for that," he said. "You have to be on point all the time with everything that happens in there. It's a mentally draining process, and I'm not as mentally drained as I was last year at this time. You really have to focus on everything, and Marc is doing that. So that's taken a little of the pressure off."

Only to be replaced by a different kind.