From wherever he might be watching, George Young, the late, great Giants general manager, has to be delighted with what his former team has done in first two days of the 2013 NFL Draft.
Young, one of the colorful characters in the league back in the day when he used to call the shots for the Giants from the bowels of the old Giants Stadium, once coined the phrase, “The dance of the elephants.’’ That was his playful reference to teams going on a run drafting big offensive and defensive linemen.
Well, the Giants, in an effort to bulk up and bolster their rushing attack, run defense and pass rush, did some serious dancing with elephants in the first three rounds the last two nights.
On Thursday night, they beefed up their offensive line by picking 6-foot-4, 301-pound Syracuse offensive tackle Justin Pugh in the first round. They followed that last night by picking 6-2, 320-pound Ohio State defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins in the second round and then added 6-5, 250-pound Texas A&M defensive end Damontre Moore in the third round.
So, in a span of about 22 hours, the Giants added some 871 pounds to their respective lines of scrimmage.
Their two picks last night specifically targeted 2012 weaknesses in run defense and pass rush.
They added Hankins to a defense that ranked 31st overall last season, including a troubling 25th against the run (129.1 yards allowed per game on 4.6 yards per carry). Then they added Moore, who had 12 1/2 sacks and 21 tackles for losses to a pass rush that produced only 33 sacks last season.
“We were 31st in league on defense … that’s enough said,’’ coach Tom Coughlin said last night.
“With his sack production — 26 1/2 in three years — you can’t pass guys up with that kind of sack production,’’ Giants general manager Jerry Reese said of the 20-year-old Moore, who had 12 1/2 sacks and 21 tackles for losses for Texas A&M last season.
“The guy’s production is off the charts when you compare it to the people that got picked ahead of him,’’ Giants director of college scouting Marc Ross said. “Productive NFL players usually were productive college players and this guy epitomizes that.’’
When a reporter jokingly asked Ross what about Moore he liked considering his poor workout numbers at the NFL Scouting Combine both lifting and his 40 time (4.9), Ross paused for a moment and said, “Twelve-and-a-half and 21.’’
Ross said Hankins’ “skill set was real easy to identify.’’
“He just shuts people down when they try to run the ball,” he said. “You need those guys to win. Johnathan is a big, wide-bodied space-eater. He is not a glamorous type of guy inside, but he does the dirty work that you need in there to occupy people — hold the point.’’
Despite Hankins’ youth (he’s 21) and the fact he’s leaving Ohio State as a junior, Ross said he’s polished enough to be an immediate NFL starter.
“He has played a lot of football at Ohio State, so this is not just a raw guy that doesn’t know what he is doing,’’ Ross said. “This guy knows how to play football; he has played a lot of it and started a lot of it at the highest level.’’
At the end of the night, the Giants’ goal to get bigger and more physical on both lines of scrimmage was clear. Even adhering to their best-available-player mantra it appears on paper that they accomplished their mission through the first two days of this draft that feels like it’s going to drag into the first week of training camp.
“We wanted to get bigger, more physical up front, and we really think we have done that with these first two [picks],’’ Ross said. “You always want big bodies. You have to win with big bodies in this league.’’
Reese said getting bigger on the line of scrimmages “is always a goal.’’
“If you don’t have bigs it’s so hard to win,’’ he said. “In this league, you’ve got to have big guys to win.’’
In speaking those words, both Reese and Ross unwittingly paid sweet homage to Young and his “dance of the elephants’’ phrase. Somewhere during the last two nights, he was chortling.