The story of the Giants’ NFL Draft will be whether they draft Shedeur Sanders or not — and why.
They have guaranteed that will be the case with Thursday’s return to Colorado for a private workout with Sanders only a week out from the draft’s first round, when the Giants will pick No. 3 overall.
Joe Schoen, Brian Daboll and the Giants’ extensive work on Sanders has been well-documented, from attending numerous games and practices deep into last fall all the way through traveling to Sanders’ recent pro day.
Why the need for another visit and workout this late? Better yet, why did the news of this workout get blasted out so nationally and publicly late Monday before a slew of Tuesday media reports sought to correct and micromanage the narrative?
Sure, the timing and logistics of setting up these private workouts during the busy draft season can be tricky. Returning this late to Boulder, Colo., however, unequivocally indicates two things:
That Sanders remains in consideration by the Giants, and that the Giants have lingering questions about him that must be answered in person.
It reinforces what the Daily News has heard throughout the process: that there are supporters of Sanders in the Giants’ building but that not everyone is sold.
“When this happens so late in the process,” former Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum tweeted on Tuesday, “either there’s a big disagreement in their building on their evaluation or their reacting to new information.”
Maybe Sanders’ camp leaked the Giants’ planned visit to juice up the quarterback’s sliding draft stock. Maybe someone in the Giants’ building wanted it out there to push their agenda on the player or the pick.
Either way, the consequence was a lot of eyebrow-raising about why this week’s Giants visit to Colorado is necessary.
Remember the Giants’ late November photo op next to Deion Sanders at a Buffaloes practice when most NFL teams were off the road by then? What, the team still doesn’t have a consensus and final evaluation on the player and person? And that’s a good thing?
The Giants organization got caught Twitter-watching again on Tuesday and seemingly tried its best to clarify that Sanders was far from the only quarterback prospect receiving a late private workout.
The team is also reportedly doing private workouts this week with Alabama’s Jalen Milroe and Louisville’s Tyler Shough, on top of the extensive work they’ve done on Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart, which included a private workout in mid-March, as The News reported.
Texas’ Quinn Ewers, one would think, would also be under consideration in that first-to-second round range.
If the Giants aren’t scrambling here, though, they are at the very least gathering extremely late intel on the quarterbacks, including a player in Sanders that should be in play for them as high as No. 3.
And this coming only a couple weeks after Schoen repeatedly insisted that the Giants would not just take a quarterback to take one.
It has the feel of ownership wanting every stone unturned. It has the feel of a team that has not yet made a decision. It looks like a franchise that may draft the son of Deion Sanders next week but still has questions about whether it should.