Players the Giants have visited or worked out before the draft

[BleedinBlue]

I'm bored and am always dying for some new news concerning the Giants, so I've done a little (quite a lot actually) research. Plus, some of you diehards are hungry for something as well.

 

This is a list of players who the Giants have met with at their campus (gleaned from kffl and NFL Draft Bible):

 

QB - Craig Hormann (Columbia Univ.)

PK - Piotr Czech (Wagner College)

OT - Gosder Cherilus (Boston College)

OG - Mackenzy Bernadeau (Bentley College)

OG - Kerry Brown (Appalachian State)

RB - Adrain Smith (Bethel College)

OG - Jeremy Zuttah (Rutgers)

CB - Antwaun Molden (U.of Eastern Kentucky)

 

It would appear that the Giants have been scouting small colleges for a hidden gem. However, Rutgers and BC aren't exactly small colleges.

 

The Giants have shown extreme interest in Jeremy Zuttah. The Giants have invited him to work out privately with them twice in the past several weeks as well as visited him at Rutgers. Zuttah has also made statements to the effect that the Giants have been his team since he was a child and it would be a dream come true to become a Giant. Zuttah is ranked as the 15th best OG by scout.com. But during the combines, Zuttah pressed 225 LBS 35 times - second to Jake Long and Vernon Gohlston who both pushed the weight up 37 times (both Long and Gohlston are projected to be gone in the first 10 picks of the draft. So the kid is strong! Also, Zuttah ran the 40 in 4.99 compared to Jake Long's 5.17. A man who is over 300 lbs running under 5.0 means he must have quite a motor. Zuttah's stats appear to be better than pretty much every other offensive guard that is rated ahead of him (well, except Long).

 

Regardless...my bet is, is that the Giants would like to add Zuttah to the offensive line. He's flying under the radar compared to Gosder Cherilus (another lineman they'd like to add to free up Diehl on the end), so he (Zuttah) could probably be had in later rounds. Scout.com gives him 2 stars out of 5 for players in his category.

But knowing the Giants, if they want someone (like they did when they went after Osi), they pull the trigger early and then the fans get to listen to assholes like self-proclaimed expert Mel Kipper tell the country how stupid it was of the Giants to take a player that wasn't high on his list - and in a round far earlier than necessary.

 

Anyway, at the combines, Cherilus pushed up 225 lbs, 24 times and ran the 40 in 5.21. Scout.com gives him 4 stars out of 5 for players in his category.

 

The only other players that the Giants have met with privately besides Zuttah are Cherilus and Antwaun Molden.

 

-----------------------------

 

An interesting vewpoint (IMO) from MVN Giants 101, about the most likely player the Giants will draft with their first round pick - keep in mind, it's one man's opinion. But if hungry for anything, makes a decent read:

 

My Realistic 1st round Big Board

By Sean O'Sullivan | March 24th, 2008

 

With the 2008 NFL Draft a little more than a month away its time for the New York Giants organization to continually study prospect tapes and to adjust their big board of prospects accordingly. With that in mind I thought I would share with you what my big board would be if I were in the Giants position. This is based on players that have a realistic shot of being available when the Giants pick at slot 31.

 

1. Kenny Phillips S Miami (FL)

 

Now you see a varying degree of grades placed on Phillips as a prospect depending on which draft site you visit but if you take the average it’ll grade out to be a little bit higher than where the Giants select at 31. Phillips is a prototypical Free Safety and is trying to follow along the footsteps of Ed Reed, Sean Taylor and Brandon Merriweather as the next great Safety from “The U”. Phillips has very good size and speed with good hands. He is aggressive which is a good thing but it can also hurt him at times. He also does a good job in run support. Phillips did not have a good junior year, but you can’t ignore what he did in his sophomore year. The Giants have reportedly very interested in Phillips and he would be a great fit a FS for this defense.

 

2. Reggie Smith DB Oklahoma

 

The thing that makes Reggie Smith such an intriguing prospect is his versatility. Smith can probably play both safety positions and corner back in the NFL. This gives the team that drafts him multiple opportunities to try and plug him into the right spot on their defense. Smith is extremely athletic and can start right away in the NFL if he finds his niche in training camp. I feel that if the Giants were to draft him he would be another good fit at the Free Safety position. One of the reasons Smith may fall to 31 is because he has been hurt and was unable to perform at the combine. A lot of teams put a lot of stock into combine numbers and this could end up hurting Smith in the long run.

 

3. Antoine Cason CB Arizona

 

Cason, like New York Giant Aaron Ross the year before him, had a great year as a cornerback and ended up winning the Jim Thorpe award for the best Defensive back in the nation. Cason has good size for a corner and has very good ball skills. The only knock on Cason is that some people feel he is a little too slow for a man to man scheme. He proved most of those haters wrong when he ran a 4.48 40 at the combine. Cason has many of the same questions that Aaron Ross had last year and they are very similar players. The pairing of Ross and Cason could make a very solid tandem in the Giants secondary for years to come.

4. Dajuan Morgan S North Carolina State

 

Some people feel this might be a stretch but Dajuan Morgan is steadily rising up draft boards and has worked himself up to the top of the 2nd range. It is well documented that Mike Mayock has Dajuan Morgan as his best safety prospect which was a very bold move but in a few years when we look back on this draft he very well might be right. Dajuan Morgan is still growing as a player and is a great athlete with good speed and size for the safety position. He has only started one year at safety during his career but he has all the tools you look for and could end up being a great player in this league.

 

5. Tracy Porter CB Indiana

 

Tracy Porter is another player that has a varied ranking depending on where you look but he is a solid 2nd round prospect and many people feel he can sneak his way into the first. Tracy Porter had a very good showing at Indiana’s pro day and is a solid corner prospect. He has great speed and great hands and is a real playmaker. He needs some coaching on his technique and I think he could excel under Spags’ defensive system. Porter is a very underrated prospect and is definitely a good candidate for pick 31.

 

-----------------------

 

Oh well....just thought I'd throw up something to read and critique. I'm getting awfully antse for draft day! :brooding:

 

[NeMesiS]

If Phillips is there at 31, i would take him in a heart beat. I like Smith. but only if the convert him into a safety. Tracy Porter is good, but he needs to get bigger if he plans to play on bump and run team.

 

Has anyone here considered drafting Pat Sims from Auburn in the first round.

[BIGBLUE01]

If Phillips is there at 31, i would take him in a heart beat. I like Smith. but only if the convert him into a safety. Tracy Porter is good, but he needs to get bigger if he plans to play on bump and run team.

 

Has anyone here considered drafting Pat Sims from Auburn in the first round.

 

Dont know too much about Sims, but Im with you on Phillips. Get that guy if we can. Also, Dajuan Morgan will be a surprise IMO.

[BleedinBlue]

Giants are going to have a personal work out today with PK Piotr Czech.

 

With a name like - one that I can't pronounce and will misspell frequently if not for "copy n paste", he seems like a shoo-in to become a Giant. Piotr is the son of Zdzislaw and Grazyna Czech...two more names worth of becoming Giants.

 

Since the Giants are pretty set all the way around, they have the luxury of burning a pick this year on a kicker for the future.

 

Anyway, here's a story on the kid:

 

Jerseyan getting a leg up on NFL dream

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

BY MIKE GARAFOLO

Star-Ledger Staff

 

With the wind behind it, the ball curled smoothly inside the right upright. From 50 yards away, it was good.

 

"You've got that natural little draw there," a Colts scout said. "That's excellent."

From 56 yards out, the ball traveled almost the same path.

 

"Draw in," the scout said. "That's great."

 

Finally, from 59 yards, the scout had no words. Well, just one.

 

"Damn," he said.

 

The rest of the players, coaches and family members applauded from the sideline. Piotr Czech had just made 12 consecutive field goals on a recent blustery morning at Staten Island's Wagner College, his college team. The last one, with two cell phones ringing as he approached the ball, left the Indianapolis scout -- as well as representatives from the Giants and Eagles -- amazed.

 

Still, to close out an impressive pro day workout, the 6-5, 210-pounder needed to show that his long leg could drive the ball through the 15-mph gusts.

 

From 55 yards, with the Indy scout rushing him by noting that the women's lacrosse team was "running us out of here" to prepare for their game, Czech nailed it.

 

At that point, the Keyport High graduate -- once among the biggest secrets in the preparation for next month's NFL Draft -- had kicked his way onto the draft boards of a few more teams. Now, after 15 teams scouted him during the season, he has private workouts scheduled with the Giants, Patriots and perhaps the Dolphins -- with more likely to be set up in the coming weeks.

 

So while questions about his big body, his small college and his lack of experience linger, Czech's name continues to be on the lips of personnel evaluators who didn't even know about him at the start of his senior season.

 

"I'm hungry for this. I want this more than anything," Czech said the other day while sitting in his SUV outside his alma mater. "It used to linger in my mind in high school, like, 'Can I really do this?' In college, it was more of a reality. Now, it's more real than ever.

 

"And I know I can do it."

 

Czech's determination shouldn't be doubted. Not after everything his family has been through since his father Zdzislaw moved his wife Grazyna and children from Poland to America 20 years ago as communism fell in Eastern Europe.

 

For two years, six members of the Czech family (including Grazyna's mother and brother) crammed into a studio apartment in Jersey City, where the parents slept on the fold-out couch while the children shared small mattresses. The Czechs then moved into a two-bedroom unit in Keyport that provided only a little more room for a family that by then included a baby girl, Anna. Eventually, Zdzislaw (known to his American friends by his middle name, Eugene) had earned enough money as an auto mechanic to buy a partially condemned house that was covered by overgrown shrubbery.

 

Only recently has the home been finished after years of hard work by the men of the Czech household.

 

"We were always in survival mode," said Arthur Czech, the oldest of the family's five children. "But our parents made sure we never went hungry. And now we're able to help them out."

 

That's exactly what Piotr is hoping to do. By making the NFL, he can help Zdzislaw, who was laid off late last year after taking a medical leave to undergo surgery on a knee that had ached him for years.

 

"Do I want to help him out?" Piotr said. "Hell yeah."

 

Piotr believes his father has helped his chances of reaching the NFL. A former member of the Polish Army soccer team who was honored as krol szczelcow ("king of goals"), which was the title for the league's MVP award, Zdzislaw nudged his boys toward soccer. The family couldn't afford video games, so the Czech boys spent most days playing the game outdoors. On rainy days they wrote letters to their friends in Poland.

 

As a sophomore in high school, Piotr played soccer as part of Keyport's collaboration with Henry Hudson High School. This came after his initial attempts at being the football team's kicker were denied after he shanked his first (and only) kick in an audition for the coaches during his freshman year. But by his junior year he won the job after spending a "summer of frustration" being coached as a kicker by Arthur, who kicked at William Paterson.

 

At Wagner, Piotr continued to improve while tailoring the basics of what Arthur taught him to what felt comfortable for him. As a junior, he was sent on to try a 54-yarder just before halftime against Sacred Heart -- the first time Wagner coach Walt Hameline had called on him from that distance.

 

It was good.

 

"From then on, everything 50-plus, he was like, 'All right, we're doing it,'" said Czech, who also punted for Wagner the past four years.

 

Of course, Czech hasn't been perfect. He missed a 42-yarder in overtime during a loss to Iona last season when the opposing coach, copying a trend that was sweeping the NFL at the time, called a timeout just before the snap on Czech's first attempt. But he had a 56-yarder against St. Francis of Pennsylvania and made a record five field goals in November's East Coast Bowl, an all-star game for small-school football programs.

 

Czech appears capable of playing in much more important games -- if he can keep his long frame in check, that is. Unlike shorter kickers, a small break in form can have a big result on the flight of the ball.

 

"He has to stay down all the way through the kick," said Pat Sempier, a local kicking coach who once worked with former Giants kicker Brad Daluiso and has volunteered as a tutor for Czech. "If he comes out of it a little bit, he'll pull off it completely."

 

Czech's build could be a red flag for some teams, even though Mike Vanderjagt -- once the most accurate kicker in NFL history -- stands at 6-5. Plus, Czech's long leg helps him quickly get the ball into the air and over the outstretched arms of opposing rushers. But teams might also be worried about how he'll handle the spotlight of playing in the NFL after four years of playing in front of small crowds at Wagner.

 

Those who know Czech say that shouldn't be a concern.

 

"He's got 100 percent confidence all the time. That's something I never had," Arthur Czech said. "What separates him from other guys is that I never see any doubt in his eyes.

 

"He brings that to kicking, but he also brings that attitude toward life."

[Lubeck]

Pe-oter Check. Not that hard to say.

 

First off is Mel Kiper gave the Giants anything more than a C+ I would drive up to Giants stadium and piss on Reese's tires. If he were such a great draft guru he would work for a front office not be ESPNs official hot air machine for draft day before getting put back into long-term storage.

 

I would love to see the Rutgers guard on the Giants.

 

And why no interest in drafting a LB with the first pick? I think LB is a bigger need than DB. And there are going to be some real good LB prospects sitting at 31 that will be gone by 63.

[BleedinBlue]

Pe-oter Check. Not that hard to say.

 

First off is Mel Kiper gave the Giants anything more than a C+ I would drive up to Giants stadium and piss on Reese's tires. If he were such a great draft guru he would work for a front office not be ESPNs official hot air machine for draft day before getting put back into long-term storage.

 

I would love to see the Rutgers guard on the Giants.

 

And why no interest in drafting a LB with the first pick? I think LB is a bigger need than DB. And there are going to be some real good LB prospects sitting at 31 that will be gone by 63.

I agree whole-heartedly with everything you say...especially Mel Kipper who gets all his information from magazines that basically get all their information from other magazines. It's all speculation by "the gurus", and they speak as if they have all the inside information on everything which is total bullshit. The Giants have an army of scouts following an army of players...many whom Kipper never even heard of. And the Giants aren't going to advertise who they think has a nasty upside. Hence....Kipper praising the Giants when they drafted William Joseph.....then Kipper calling the Giants "nuts" when they drafted Osi Umenyura and laughed out loud when the Giants drafted Kiwinuka. Of course...the Giants got the last laugh didn't they.

 

Regardless....I trust the scouts and the coaches one-thousand percent more than any magazine or stuffed shirt talking head. I agree that the talking heads and sports magazines usually know the top 10 or so players, but after that it's a crap shoot and only the dedicated and secretive scouts know the real deal.

 

I agree that if Dan Conner is still on the board at 31 he will be too tempting to resist. But I'm not a scout with inside information so I don't know everything there is to know about the kid. I believe the Giants aren't that bad off with their current linebacking corps with Clark and Wilkenson battling it out at the "Will" spot, Pierce and Blackburn (and even DeOssie) playing "Mike" and once Kiwi is back, him and Tank Daniels should do fine covering the "Sam". None of them are perrenial pro-bowlers, but they've been pretty consistent and Pierce is very solid and Kiwi was becoming dominating before his injury. All in all....I can see why the Giants may not feel the need to go for the best linebacker on the board if there's a stud DB or DT still on the board.

 

I think in the article that was trying to figure out what the Giants would do with their first pick had assumed that Dan Conner and Keith Rivers were both gone before the Giants turn to pick. If you look at the authors mock draft, he has Conner going at 21 and Rivers at 17 (or something like that).

 

I trust Reese, TC and the Giants scouts. The Giants are in an enviable position because there are no glaring holes that absolutely must be addressed by the draft....therefore, they can simply pluck the very best player on the board.....even if it's at a position that is already strong for us.

 

And oh yeah.....I would love to see Jeremy Zuttah from Rutgers end up in a Giants uniform as well. Not only because he's a quality prospect, but because he is also a "bleedin blue" type of Giants fan his whole life.

[BleedinBlue]

The Giants are meeting with CB Reggie Corner (Akron) - interesting name for a cornerback!

 

The Giants are also meeting with TE John Tereshinski (Wake Forest ). Maybe the Giants are serious about moving Shockey to the Saints. More than a few beat writers are saying that the Saints are not giving up on acquiring Shockey.