All that planning. Simulation after simulation. Mock draft after mock draft. Hours, days and weeks trying to figure out what will happen with the four picks in front of you to determine who might be available at No. 5.
And then, doing it all again for pick No. 10.
So much effort and angst. Will he be there? He will never drop to us. What might [fill in the name of a team] do, will someone trade out, how will our draft board rankings hold up when we are on the clock?
The Giants went through all of it. Of course they did. That is the job of the general manager and that is how Joe Schoen spent so much of his time leading up to this past Thursday night.
“I think Joe probably ran about a zillion mocks — no, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration,’’ head coach John Harbaugh said. “A zillion seems like a high number, but maybe it was a couple million.’’
Schoen smiled.
“Close,’’ he said.
All that strategizing and conjecture must have led to some sort of expert analysis as to the players the Giants would get at 5 and 10. You would think so. You would be wrong.
“This one didn’t come up,’’ Harbaugh said. “This was not one that was really anticipated.’’
“This one’’ turned out to be linebacker Arvell Reese from Ohio State at No. 5 and offensive lineman Sisi Mauigoa from Miami at No. 10. All those countless permutations and combinations, yet this one was not anticipated.
“Just shows you that, you know reality is — fiction is stranger than reality?’’ Harbaugh said. “Reality is stranger than fiction? It’s one of the two. You know what I’m saying, right? This is exciting. This is not expected. This is something that’s really a great, a great opportunity for us.’’
Harbaugh in 18 years with the Ravens never had the luxury of two top-10 picks in any draft. Heck, he had only one top-10 pick — No. 6 in 2016 — so he can be excused for seeming a bit giddy after these two selections were in the books.
“It’s two picks that strengthen us down the middle,’’ he said. “Down the middle of our offense, down the middle of our defense. These are two, these are great players, these are two top-five players in this draft, in our opinion. You couldn’t do any better.’’
These two players are now officially the first draft picks for the Harbaugh Giants. He demanded strength down the middle in Baltimore and knew he needed it to establish his culture with his new franchise.
Reese brings a ferocity to the interior of the defense. He was asked what he knows about Harbaugh’s Ravens teams.
“The image that I remember growing up, I always feel like the Ravens played fast and violent and that’s kinda what I try to model my game after, being fast and violent,’’ Reese said Friday at the Giants facility.
Fast and violent. Which one does he prefer?
“I think both are important but if you’re playing defense, you got to be violent,” Reese said. “Like, you got to be thinking of doing something violent.’’
Sounds like a mindset Harbaugh desires for his defense.
Mauigoa brings power to the interior of the offensive line. He said he knows about Harbaugh’s teams with the Ravens based on “Ray Lewis, that type of style of play comes up with John Harbaugh and how he teaches things.
“I see him as an old-school type of coach and that’s how I like things to be: hard, gritty, no cutting corners.’’
Earlier in the day, Mauigoa met Jaxson Dart for the first time and the two exchanged a handshake, a hug and a few words.
“Excited to get it going with him, block my ass off for him,’’ said Mauigoa, who immediately becomes the favorite to win the starting job at right guard.
The first two first-round picks for the Harbaugh Giants are players who fit the Harbaugh mold.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
