The New York Giants will have the 32nd and final selection of the first round of the NFL Draft Thursday night. That, of course, is because the Giants are defending Super Bowl champions.
This is the third time since 2006 that the Giants have had the final pick in the first round. In 2006 the Giants drafted defensive end/linebacker Mathias Kiwanuka 32nd overall. In 2008, they selected safety Kenny Phillips (31st) — the Patriots forfeited a first-round pick that year because of Spygate. Both players are starters and were key members of the Super Bowl-winning team.
Just like with those two selections, Reese expects to find a quality player at No. 32.
“You just wait and see if somebody is going to fall to you or if there is somebody you may be able to move up for, that you’re in love with. It’s always a good problem to have when you’re picking 32,” Reese said. “More likely, somebody we have ahead of our 32nd pick in our first row, more than likely somebody will be down there where we want to pick. Again, at the bottom of that first row, we think those guys are second round picks, unless we have somebody pretty high that falls. But we’ll see. We could easily have somebody fall down.”
Related: Reviewing The Last Three Giants’ Drafts
As he always does, Reese insisted the Giants will pick the best player regardless of position.
“We’re conscious of what we think our needs are, but we try to pick the best player in the draft. We do try to fill holes in free agency when we get an opportunity to do that, but we never say let’s get a certain position in the draft. We just try to pick the best player,” Reese said.
Here is a list of all of the Giants’ selections in the 2012 NFL Draft:
Round 1 — 32nd overall
Round 2 — 63rd overall
Round 3 — 94th overall
Round 4 — 127th overall
Round 4 — 131st overall (compensatory)
Round 5 — No selection (traded to Cincinnati for LB Keith Rivers)
Round 6 — 201st overall
Round 7 — 239th overall