This NFL Draft is Super Bowl Thursday for all the GMs and coaches and scouts, and inside all 32 war rooms they will be able to cut the tension with a knife. One Tim Couch, one Joey Harrington, one Tony Mandarich can cost careers. High stakes. High drama. High intrigue. High anxiety.
Draft Day, 1997: Wide receiver Ike Hilliard was rated slightly higher than running back Tiki Barber on the Giants’ board. Approximately half an hour before the Giants’ pick, No. 7, some began lobbying for Barber. Now the Giants were on the clock. Head coach Jim Fassel wanted Hilliard, and passionately argued “there’s only one team between our first pick and second pick that is gonna look for a Tiki Barber-type running back.”
GM George Young asked Fassel to step outside, where Young asked him, “Who do you want?”
“I want Ike in the first, and I believe Tiki will be there in the second,” Fassel said.
Young replied, “That’s what we’re gonna do. Let’s go back in the room.”
The Giants landed both. “I sweated the next three, four hours,” Fassel said.
Draft Day, 2002: The Giants, picking 15th, are on the clock. Titans coach Jeff Fisher, picking 14th, calls Fassel and says: “You can come up to 14 and take (Jeremy) Shockey and we’ll move back to 15 for your third-round pick.”
Fassel declines. Fisher tells him that the Browns, picking 16th, and the Seahawks, picking 28th, have offered a swap of picks and a third-rounder.
“Give me a couple of minutes,” Fassel says. “I’ll call you back.”
Fassel knew the Titans craved defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth.
“I can’t do it,” Fassel told Fisher. “We’ve got three guys with the same grade and the guy we’ll take (if Shockey is gone) is Albert Haynesworth. It doesn’t matter to us.”
Eight years later, Fassel told The Post: “There was dead silence on the phone.” When Fisher called back, he said, “OK, we’ll take your fourth.”
Draft Day, 1985: Cowboys scout Ron Marciniak had already climbed atop a nine-foot by four-foot table to convince skeptics to ignore Jerry Rice’s relatively slow [above 4.6 seconds on grass] 40-yard dash time. The Cowboys were picking 17th, one slot behind the Patriots. Al Toon (Jets) and Eddie Brown (Bengals) had been drafted. But then, out of nowhere, from the 28th slot, Bill Walsh and the 49ers traded up to 16 and stole Rice.
“We were all ready to jump out of an 11th story window,” former Cowboys VP of Player Personnel Gil Brandt recalled.
The Cowboys settled for Michigan defensive end Kevin Brooks.
Draft Day, 1979: Joe Montana stood atop the Cowboys’ draft board in the third round.
“I can see how you like him,” Tom Landry told everyone, “but we’ve got three quarterbacks [Danny White, Roger Staubach and Glenn Carano] already. I’m afraid if we take him, we’ll probably just cut him at the end of training camp.”
The Cowboys took tight end Doug Cosbie with the 76th pick. The 49ers grabbed Montana with the 82nd.
Draft Day, 1991: The Cowboys, picking 12th, were staring at wide receiver Alvin Harper.
“I never wanted to draft a receiver up high,” former Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson recalled.
So Johnson began working the phones, and became concerned when a deal to swap picks with Redskins coach Joe Gibbs, at 17, appeared in jeopardy.
“Joe,” Johnson said, “you agreed to it, our guys are ready to make the trade.” Johnson remembers Gibbs, in a low voice, telling him, “Jimmy, I’m sorry, but the old man [owner Jack Kent Cooke] turned me down.”
Johnson had one minute left to find a trade partner. He wound up drafting Harper.
Draft Day, 1981: The Saints held the first overall pick. Young and the Giants, at No. 2, craved linebacker Lawrence Taylor. Young held his breath as NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle announced that the Saints were selecting running back George Rogers. Now one of the Giants’ on-site employees at the New York Sheraton had to submit Taylor’s name to the league.
“As soon as he [Young] heard the word ‘George,’ he ran over, grabbed the phone and screamed, ‘Get that bleeping card up there. RUN! RUN!,” former Player Personnel Director Tom Boisture recalled with a laugh.
Draft Day, 1989: The Giants’ scouting department lobbied in the fifth round for 5-foot-8 running back/returner Dave Meggett.
“What am I gonna do with that midget?” Bill Parcells moaned. Boisture responded: “Just pitch him the ball and let him run.” Added Boisture: “That got a big laugh out from everybody. But because of that, Bill got George to give him the eighth-round pick. It was his pick, period.”
So the Giants drafted Meggett and Parcells drafted Myron Guyton.