More defensive help
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- April
- 26
Sorry for the delay. Things happen pretty quickly after the first round ends. We had Phillips on the phone, then Coughlin, Jerry Reese and Marc Ross press conferences, and deadlines on stories for the paper, including one on Jeremy Shockey still being a Giant.
Anyway, the Giants went defense/defense, actually defensive-back/defensive-back with their two picks today, selecting Terrell Thomas, a corner from USC, with the 63rd pick overall.
Marc Ross, the Giants’ director of college scouting insisted the Giants didn’t go into round thinking “need.”
“We’re happy we got two good football players,†Ross said. “We didn’t go in saying ‘We’ve got to take two defensive guys or two offensive guys.’ We went in and stuck with our board and we took two football players we really liked. We didn’t have a gameplan in mind of what positions or what side of the ball. It was ‘Let’s get good football players.’
“We don’t draft like that, by need. That’s when you get hurt, when you say ‘We need this, we need to take a corner, we need to take this.’ How the board falls and how we have them stacked, that’s how we take ‘em.â€
They also got versatility, which the Giants obviously have at other positions, i.e. linebacker and defensive line — guys who could play elsewhere, too.
Phillips could play either safety position, or corner, and the Giants will have to decide which safety spot best suits him, and Thomas could play safety, too, although Ross said definitively that he was drafted to be a corner.
Thomas is probably more NFL-ready, too, having played through his senior year on a national powerhouse at Southern Cal, while Phillips spent three seasons on a down Miami program, and is a younger player, having skipped his senior year to enter the draft.
“There’s a lot of things to like about Kenny Phillips,†GM Reese said. “We like his size (6-2, 213), we like his speed, he’s multi-dimensional.
“We think he can go down and play on (the opponents’) third receiver if he has to. He’s smart. He’s a good person. We like all that stuff about him. … Nothing but upside for this guy.â€
Here’s a quick scouting report on Thomas:
Terrell Thomas (63rd overall), CB, USC, 6-1, 198 pounds: Considered one of the top “lock-down†cornerbacks in college football, and a force against the run, scouts think Thomas could switch to free safety, although the Giants said they drafted him to be a corner. The downside here is that Thomas’s aggressive style has resulted in injuries. He has had surgery on both shoulders and his right knee. Thomas was a tailback, also, in high school at Ranch Cucamonga in California. Thomas started 28 times in 39 career games at Southern California. He had eight picks, three forced fumbles, three recoveries and 109 tackles (78 solo).
This entry was posted
on Saturday, April 26th, 2008 at 9:07 pm by Carp. 
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Ernie Palladino
