Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the NFL’s Annual Player Selection Meeting, or as it’s more commonly known, the NFL Draft. For weeks, and months, Thursday, April 23 has been a faraway dot, somewhere down the road. But April 23 has arrived at last. The endless analysis, speculation, prognostication — and let’s be honest, guessing — will come to an end over the next 72 hours, as college football’s best players hear their names called in Pittsburgh.
Round 1 of the draft takes place this evening, in prime time, and the Giants are one of six teams with two selections in the round. Those two selections – Pick No. 5 and Pick No. 10 – are up high, and regardless of whether Big Blue trades out of either spot, or “sticks and picks”, New York is going to have outsized influence on tonight’s proceedings.
So, what are the Giants going to do with those two Top-10 picks? That’s been the topic of much debate, and the answer, as they say, is clear as mud. To help fans sort through it, we’ve been tracking mock drafts and FanDuel odds. Both of those tools can be illustrative, but obviously they’re by no means definitive. In the end, GM Joe Schoen and HC John Harbaugh are going to decide what direction is best for the team, and that could include trading out of one or both slots. Check out Big Blue View’s draft hub for all of our draft content.
At Pick 5, the mock draft favorite throughout has been Ohio State LB Sonny Styles – that is, until today. More on that in a minute. He’s been the odds favorite for most of the process as well, and still is as of noon today, but just barely. His odds have never been much shorter than 2:1, however, and his mock draft percentage peaked at right around 50%. So, he’s aways just been a “best guess”.
Here’s the final Mock Draft Tracker, published on the site this morning. For the first time, Ohio State Safety Caleb Downs has edged past Styles for the top choice at Pick No. 5, but neither is above 30%. He’s also the mockers’ top choice at Pick No. 10, and last I checked, a player can only be selected once. Downs is a player who has been linked to Big Blue throughout the draft process.
Here is Thursday’s FanDuel odds column. As a reminder, the odds are for the pick slot, not the team that currently holds the pick, and the odds aren’t a pure estimation of which players and teams are the best match – they necessarily also reflect a calculation of which players are most likely to be available at each slot.
Let’s look at how the odds for Pick 5 have moved in the last week.
Ohio State LB Sonny Styles: +190
Ohio State S Caleb Downs: +250
Miami OT Francis Mauigoa +420
Notre Dame RB Jeremiyah Love: +650
Ohio State WR Carnell Tate: +1400
ASU WR Jordyn Tyson +1900
Ohio State LB Sonny Styles: +185
ASU WR Jordyn Tyson +285
Notre Dame RB Jeremiyah Love: +380
Ohio State S Caleb Downs: +550
Miami OT Francis Mauigoa +950
Ohio State WR Carnell Tate: +1100
Ohio State LB Sonny Styles: +260
