mastershake

Also, I think this gives us more leverage to either have Rolle take a pay cut or be released. He has a huge cap number, and one of the more inefficient contracts on the books.

Isn't Stevie Brown replacing Phillips? Mundy is for depth.

I don't know if I'd be a great gm, but I'm certain I can do better than Oakland 2003-present

Exactly, I figure I can't do any worse. Here's my resume for the position: Two masters degrees. 7 years working in statistics and predictive analytics in a business setting. Relevant Experience: Madden 2003-2013: Franchise Mode Fantasy Football 2003-present

Here's some perspective: Since 2004, the raiders have had six Top 10 draft choices, including the #1 overall.... Only two of them remain with the team today (McClain 2010 and McFadden 2009)...The former has frequently been in trouble and is about to be cut, the latter has been injury prone and has had one good year. Essentially, all of their six Top 10 draft choices have been busts. The Raiders traded their 2011 #17 pick for Richard Seymour. He is no longer with the team The Raiders traded their 2012 #17 pick and a 2013 2nd rounder for Carson Palmer - enough said In 2010, Oakland traded away their #42 pick to the Patriots for picks #44 and a 6th rounder. The Patriots with #42 selected Rob Grankowski. Oakland, with #44 selected Lamar Houston. I know hindsight is 20/20, but this is still funny. I figure I can be the Raiders GM... I can't possibly do any worse than this confused Oakland Raider organization.

The contracts are similar, but Jenkins is more likely to play in 16 games versus Canty's 8.

http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/new-york-giants/jason-pierre-paul/ JPP is currently signed through 2014. Still, I'm sure we'd prefer to lock him in before he can even think about free agency in 2015.

Restricted Free Agency is much different than normal unrestricted free agency. The giants for instance have three possibilities: To tender (re-sign to a pre-specified one year contract), re-sign (to a non-tendered contract), or decline to tender or re-sign. Going simplest to hardest: -Decline to tender or resign. They become an unrestricted free agent -Re-sign to a non-tendered contract -Tender a one year RFA contract. For a player in question, the team chooses if it would like to offer a draft round 1-7 tender. Round 1 tenders have the highest value (this year, 2.9 million) down to round 7 with the lowest value. Now, here's an example. The giants tendered Victor Cruz a 1st round, one year 2.9 million dollar contract. Other teams can offer Cruz more lucrative, longer term contracts, HOWEVER with two caveats: 1-The Giants can opt to match any offer other teams put on the table, 2-If the Giants do NOT opt to match other team's offers, the team signing Cruz will have to give us their 1st round draft pick this year. If a team does not have a 1st round pick, I believe such a team cannot make an offer. RFA functions almost like an insurance policy protecting these types of free agents from being signed elsewhere by making it painful for other teams to offer them contracts (literally restricting their ability to do so). The other team not only has to offer the RFA big money, the other team also has to give up a draft pick, and this is often the key deterrent, particularly for teams high in the draft order. E.g. A team like Kansas City - KC can sign Cruz, however IF they do, they have to give up the #1 pick overall. With this type of a tender, Reese has virtually wiped out teams 1-20 from making Cruz an offer (unless a team has no issue with relinquishing a top 20 draft pick for Cruz). Additionally, I believe a team can also offer multiple tenders to an RFA. For example, say the giants wanted to offer a 1st AND a 2nd round tender to Cruz because they think he's valuable. In this case, the contract would be 1 year 4.9 million, and any team trying to sign him away from the giants would have to give up a 1st and 2nd round pick to us. Make sense?

So much for my plan to address OL, TE and LB. I forgot about our RFA (though, are they in some way figured into the cap already? Unlikely, but I've seen stranger things with Capology)

For the rest of FA, I can see Reese signing an OL, TE and LB. Whether that includes Boothe and/or Bennett remains to be seen. With Jenkins signed, these three positions have the most holes. We definitely can't go nuts and spend huge sums of money. I'd prefer to see a couple FA LBers if possible; Lord knows Reese can't draft LBs for some reason (Wilkinson, Sintim, Dillard, Jones, etc)

He's still under contract, according to sportrac http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/minnesota-vikings/kevin-williams/

Borrowing from the other threads link: ESPN ranks Cullen Jenkins as the 2nd best free agent DT, behind Casey Hampton (age 35), and in front of Henry Melton who was franchised. http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/freeagency/?year=2013&position=32

I'm not sure if these four are considered top 10. Possibly Richardson. I'd love if somehow, Shariff Floyd fell to us. Most of the guys you mentioned I'd love to have (some mocks have even Werner falling to us). I wouldn't mind Reese picking a CB or OL; I like Trufant better than Rhodes). I figure we need help at any defensive position plus across the OL.

I've seen good and bad tape on a lot of these guys. It's tough to evaluate. Given that we don't do this professionally, we have to go on a lot of what scouts say. Short's measurables, athleticism, and and production are all good. Assuming the good DE/LB (Jones, Woerner, Mingo, Moore) or OL don't fall to us at #19, I'd prefer we trade down to 20-32, and pick up some extra draft picks.

Short would be my choice. Hankins and Williams.... I'm kinda ehhh on them. Maybe if they fall to the 2nd round at pick 49 (which they may do). But what the hell do I know. I'm no NFL talent evaluator.... yet :-)

The Jets will sign her for the headlines it will generate.

SNY does a better job of explaining compensatory picks, and you can read their projections here: http://snygiants.com/nfl/projecting-the-giants-2013-compensatory-picks/

It looks like for Ross and Manningham, we may be getting two compensatory picks, possibly in rounds 5-6. There are rumors that we possibly may get a 7th for Tolleson as well. The compensatory pick calculation is complicated, but the gist is it's = free agents lost with non-minimum contracts minus free agents signed to non-minimum contracts. Essentially we "lost" four players to Free Agency last year (Jacobs, Ross, Manningham, Tolleson to non minimum contracts), and signed only one free agent Bennet (again, to a non-minimum contract). The net result is 4-1 = 3. I'm not certain if Tolleson counts - if he does not, that gives us two. Players like Stevie Brown don't quality in the above calculation because we signed him for the league minimum. Another example of a player who doesn't qualify in the above calculation is Jon Goff - he signed elsewhere, but did so for the league minimum.

Note: I'd go with this even if we get a DT and LB in free agency. I don't go particularly high on OL in this draft for two reasons: 1- I think Reese will either shuffle the line (Diehl to LG or RT), and pick up some OL in the offseason, 2-We have young guys in Mosley and McCants who were injured last year and didn't get a chance, and can be viewed as "draft picks" or rookies this year. I'm convinced the biggest weakness the giants had last year was on defense. In this draft, I seek to re-established the giants dominant defenses of the past: 1, 19th Pick. DT Kawann Short, Purdue 6'3 300 (Reese likes length and versatile DLs, and I like the game tape I've seen on him) 2. 49th Pick. OLB Arthur Brown, Kansas State, 6'0 242 3. 81st Pick. ILB Jon Bostic, Florida, 6'1 246 4. 113th pick, CB Rod Sweeting, Georgia Tech 5'11 189 5. Earl Watford, OG James Madison 6'3 300 5 (projected compensatory pick for Aaron Ross) Josh Evans, FS Florida 6'1 209 6. Travis Johnson, OLB San Jose St 6'2 244 7 Matthew Tucker, RB TCU 6'0 221

Good signing. The rest of the OL from LG over to RT is still wide open for us to acquire players via free agency or the draft. Boothe is a free agent. Baas will be 32 and is sub-par anyway Diehl & Snee have clearly regressed and are past their prime Haven't really seen anything out of James Brewer to make me believe he's anything other than a backup at this point.

edit: Wrong Thread

With these mock drafts, generally after pick 10, pick 15, etc they tend to vary wildly in their precision. And generally, since 2004, the giants have been in the bottom half of the 1st round, thus lower precision in mocking the giants 1st round pick. To your point, nobody had Prince falling to us. Though, I recall back in 2009, Nicks was in a few mocks. Walters football MAY have had us taking David Wilson at some point last year (I think I recall Wilson to the giants in one of their mocks) Attempting to mock anything after the 1st round is a real crapshoot, though it could provide a sense of what positions the giants might pick, and in what order of picks.

So far, on DT, DE and LB, here are my Likes/Dislikes based purely on the Combine: Now I’m not saying all of these guys are going to be studs, but they should at least find a home and last in the NFL: Likes: -DT Shariff Floyd: May have propelled himself into the top 10 with his performance. His stock was already on the rise. Kinda wish he hadn’t participated so he potentially could have fallen to the giants #19 pick. -DT Montori Hughes: Tennesee-Martin: 3rd-4th round -DE/OLB Dion Jordan, Oregon. in my eyes and by scouts comments, was hands down the best front 7 participant. Top 20 projected pick, possible top 10. -DE/OLB Barkavious Mingo, LSU 1st round, possible top 15. -DE/OLB Corey Lemonier, Auburn. 2nd-3rd round projected -DE Margus Hunt, SMU. 2nd-3rd round projected -DE/OLB Michael Buchanen, Illinois, 3rd-4th round projected -DE/OLB Jamie Collins, 2nd-3rd round projected -DE Ziggy Ansah, 1st round projected. Workout looked great, but he’s extremely raw (more raw than JPP) -MLB/OLB Jon Bostic, Florida 2nd-3rd round projected (I'm biased in favor of Florida defenders, I'll admit) -WLB Sio Moore, Uconn 3rd-4th round projected -MLB Kevin Reddick, North Carolina 3rd-4th round projected -SLB Cornelious Washington, Georgia 3rd – 4th round Dislikes -LB Manti Teo, Notre Dame: Looked stiff, didn't help himself with the combine. -LB Kevin Minter, LSU: Didn't look like 1st round material (though the combine may not be a good projector for MLBs). -DE/OLB Demontre Moore, Texas A&M. Hard to assess this guy. He's top 15 projected, yet had an absolutely terrible combine for a 6'4 250 hybrid player. -DT John Hankins, Ohio State. Looked fat and out of shape. Only a two down defender in this league, projected as a 1st rounder, but shouldn’t be. Not participating, or limited participant (oddly, I like Okafor and Short, but they barely participated if at all) Obviously, a lot of high profile guys generally limit themselves or skip the combine entirely: -DE Alex Okafor (bench press only) -OLB Jarvis Jones, Georgia -DT Star Lotulelei, Utah, apparently now has a serious heart condition which may threaten his career -DT Kawann Short, Purdue -DT Jesse Williams (bench only) -DT John Jenkins -DE Brandon Jenkins

Reese didn't pick Eli :-)

All those subtle changes to the Cardinals and Browns franchise logos, and still they're two of the shittiest NFL franchises in history