Could a Dave Brown/ Kent Graham plan work this time?

There have been a few threads (to say the least) about the Webb pick and what it means for the Giants, and how much of it is related to a more rapid decline in Eli or just the Giants preparing for the future.

One thing is clear, Eli nearing the end of his career. That is going to happen no matter what.

As we've seen from the Giants, the last 2 times they had longer term/successful QBs, they planned their succession via the draft. That was for Phil Simms/ Jeff Hostetler in the early 1990s and Kerry Collins after 2003.

Now, Collins is a different case in that they traded for a Franchise QB in Eli in the draft and everyone knew that he was going to take over. When you team goes 4-12 it's easy to make that call. Warner was a caretaker for half the season and then it was full on Eli.

So let's go back to 1992. A couple of things happened at this time. The Giants brought in a young offensive coach who was supposed to specialize working with QBs (Jim Fassel). After 1991, Hostetler was named the starter, but got hurt during the season and gave the job to Simms. He was turning 31 years old and free agency was on the horizon so the Giants had to hedge with him. Simms meanwhile finished the 1991 season as the starter, but went into 1992 at age 37. So the Giants knew they needed to get a successor ready. They had taken some lukewarm picks in the late 1980s to develop a QB- Craig Kupp (5th in 1990) and Michael Perez (7th in 1988) but nothing came of them.

Then came 1992, they picked Kent Graham in the 8th round out of Ohio State and a couple of months later grabbed Dave Brown with the #1 supplemental. In 1992, Ray Handley actually kept all 4 QBs on the roster (Simms, Hoss, Brown, and Graham). Their theory at the time, going into 1993, they were going to keep one of Simms or Hostetler, the other had to go. And they wanted to keep Graham and Brown as backups to learn behind the veteran winner of the spot. And when the time came, they would know the system and battle out for a starter and backup. Needless to say, neither option turned out well, though to defend Dave Brown, the Giants had collected some of the worst offensive skill position players to work with (a broken down Rodney Hampton, Arthur Marshall, Chris Calloway as a #1, ugh). But while both Brown and Graham went on to actually have semi-lengthy careers, neither panned out for the Giants.

So let's get to 2017. Eli is now the wily veteran nearing the end. They have a reclamation project in Geno Smith on the roster and a career backup in Josh Johnson. Now there are 2 ways to think about this. If the Giants are serious, do they look for Geno to win the job for backup from Johnson and have Webb as the #3, both behind Eli and learn what it takes to play QB in the system. Or... as Dave Te told us, next year's QB crop will rival the 1983 group in terms of depth and talent. Is it out of the realm that even next year the Giants draft one of those QBs with a #1 pick, and they set up their top pick and Webb in a competition to succeed Eli, where they will have their own Brown vs. Graham battle for starter/backup. Teams have always lived and died at the QB spot, so as the most important position on the team, knowing they need to be ready for Eli to leave, the Giants need to focus on finding a solve for a life without Eli. The George Young blueprint was made 25 years ago on how to handle it, and Reese comes from the Young/ Accorsi bloodline. So I wonder if this will be their ultimate plan. If it turns out that the Giants coaches feel they might have something in Webb (or..gasp, Geno!) they can skip the 2018 QB crop. If they are still lukewarm, they can jump back in next year again and draft one high and expect one of them to be ready to replace Eli.