After the departure of Pro Bowl running back Saquon Barkley this offseason, the New York Giants found themselves in a dilemma in the backfield.
General manager Joe Schoen wasted no time in free agency signing Devin Singletary. Still, the need for additional help in the backfield was a no-brainer, and the Giants knew that looking to the Draft was their best option.
After the initial round of the draft, in which New York selected standout receiver Malik Nabers, the Giants would have another opportunity to make a selection at No. 47. Many of the targeted players were still available at the time. Reports indicated that the Giants held Minnesota’s Tyler Nubin and Texas’ Jonathan Brooks in high regard.
Brooks looked like an attractive option with a running back need. That was until the Carolina Panthers, whose general manager Dan Morgan worked alongside Schoen in Buffalo, traded with the Indianapolis Colts to pick 46th overall, just one spot ahead of the Giants, to select the Texas running back.
The Giants would select Nubin with the next pick, who was a hawkish safety in college, and the replacement for another key free agent loss, Xavier McKinney.
Schoen was asked by reporters about the possibility of the Panthers moving ahead of the Giants to nab Brooks after the conclusion of the second day of the draft.
“I’m not sure. I’m very close to Dan. Dan Morgan is one of my best friends in the world. We didn’t talk about it much,” Schoen told reporters after the second day of the draft. “They also called us and said, hey , maybe you would want to come back? I don’t know if he just got anxious. In some of those situations, it’s not always just us. Maybe other teams are trying to trade our team. So you don’t know when you find someone you like and want to go to. look for it and it’s in range, you try to pull the trigger. I’m not sure if he thought we could do that or not.”
In the video above, posted by the Panthers’ official website, Carolina admits to moving up to get ahead of the Giants because they felt New York was all over Brooks.
Brooks could have been a first-round pick had he not suffered a torn ACL in November against TCU. He maintained a 6.1 yards per carry average, racking up 1,425 total yards and scoring 11 touchdowns in just 11 games for the Longhorns in 2023.
The Giants ultimately selected running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. out of Purdue in the fifth round, 166th overall.
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