Dan Shonka, the general manager and national scout for Our Lads, a highly regarded draft service with a great pre-draft publication, is a former NFL scout with the Redskins, Eagles and Chiefs among other independent services.
In a recent conversation, we asked him to break down his seven-round mock draft for the Giants and where he felt the team's biggest needs were.
For the short hand version, Shonka projected the Giants draft to go as follows:
Round 1: Zack Martin, OL, Notre Dame
Round 2: Troy Niklas, TE, Notre Dame
Round 3: Will Sutton, DT, Arizona State
Round 4: Josh Huff, WR, Oregon
Round 5: Lamin Barrow, ILB, LSU
Round 5: TJ Jones, WR, Notre Dame
Round 6: Lorenzo Taliaferro, RB, Coastal Carolina
Shonka breaks down his reasoning for some of the picks down below...
"Jerry calls the shots more than the coaches there, but I could see them going one of two ways. I could see them doing something with Aaron Donald, but first I think that Zack Martin would probably be perfect for the Giants because he's a five-for-one guy. Ideally, you don't want him on the edge (at tackle), but Justin Pugh has short arms and isn't exactly Jumbo Elliott size-wise and he'll probably end up at guard and he got by at tackle. Martin will get some reps at tackle but ideally he's a guard and, ideally, five or six years down the road, he's a center. His brother starts at center at Notre Dame.
"The way our mock draft turned out, they're getting three Notre Dame guys. They got Martin at No. 12, tight end Troy Niklas at No. 43 and then wide receiver T.J. Jones at No. 187.
"We also gave them Will Sutton (Arizona State) a really good one-gap defensive lineman at No. 74. He was a player of the year out there on defense but he looked a lot more sluggish. He gained like 20 pounds and showed some quickness still but he wasn't as explosive as he was his junior year. If you get his weight down he's a hell of a football player.
"We gave them Josh Huff (wide receiver, Oregon) at No. 113 and a linebacker, Lamin Barrow, out of LSU at No. 152.
"At No. 174 we have Lorenzo Taliaferro, a running back at Coastal Carolina. He's a great size guy, like 230 pounds."
NFL Draft 2014: Three Notre Dame players make sense for Giants, former scout says | NJ.com
