It’s the most dead time of the year in the NFL. Free agency is at a standstill, the draft has concluded, rookie minicamps and organized team activities (OTAs) are done, and there is nothing on the schedule until the middle of July.
So, what are we to do while we wait? Soccer matches and baseball games fill in on occasion, but we still need our football fix.
Luckily, PFF released a 2013 NFL re-draft, and their selection for the Giants is interesting.
Rather than selecting Justin Pugh, PFF suggests the Giants would choose Jamie Collins Sr. in the first round of the 2013 NFL draft.
Collins was a good fit in New England at the time, but if you look back at the Giants’ roster, he would have been a backup for a couple of years before getting a shot at starting. He would have competed, and he would have seen field time, but it would have been very different from what he did with the Patriots.
Besides, if you look at how the Giants’ offensive line performed with Pugh, they wouldn’t want to give that up. They were in the middle of the rankings for sacks allowed during his rookie season. In 2014, they allowed the 10th fewest sacks in the league. In 2015, it was the fourth fewest, and in 2016 it was the third fewest. In 2017, they dropped to 12th, but Pugh was injured in Week 8 and didn’t return that season.
Pugh joined the Giants at the end of the Tom Coughlin era, and while the team wasn’t stellar, he is a large reason why Eli Manning stayed upright those years. Still, even with the Giants’ defensive roster, they weren’t great during those years, and Collins may have earned a larger role earlier than later.
