New York Giants: Ereck Flowers a historic bust

Unless he turns things around in the eleventh hour, left tackle Ereck Flowers will go down as one of the biggest busts in New York Giants’ history.

The New York Giants selected running back Ron Dayne with the eleventh pick in the 2000 NFL Draft. Dayne won the Heisman Trophy while at Wisconsin, and the Giants hoped, and probably assumed, he would only improve over time. He didn’t. He failed to rush for at least 800 yards in a single season during his four years with the Giants, and he did little of note after the team let him enter free agency.

You’d have to go back that far to find a worse Giants draft pick than left tackle Ereck Flowers.

By now, even casual fans who accidentally stumbled upon this piece know all about Flowers’ struggles and poor play. Maybe they found themselves in the group of Big Blue supporters who bought into the idea, or wishful thinking, the 24-year old was finally finding his feet in the league last fall. Of course, we all know better now. Earlier this week, the Giants declined Flowers’ fifth-year option, essentially guaranteeing he’ll play elsewhere in 2019, if not earlier.

Reports surfaced ahead of the first night of this year’s draft that the Giants were shopping the third-year pro taken ninth overall in 2015. It turns out there isn’t much a market out there for a left tackle who can’t protect quarterbacks, can’t open lanes for running backs and, in some cases, can’t avoid falling on his backside when facing top-tier pass-rushers. Per Spotrac, the final year of his contact carries a dead cap value of roughly $4.579 million, meaning he and the Giants are probably married to each other for now.

Things change, injuries happen and teams take fliers on a draft bust who proves he is in shape and convinces would-be employers he may just need the proverbial change of scenery. Getting anything — literally a bag of footballs would do at this rate — for Flowers’ services is New York’s only hope of recovering any value from what is left of a lost cause. Current general manager Dave Gettleman would be better off buying a PowerBall ticket and crossing his fingers than believing Flowers will turn things around this summer.

So what the heck happened? It’s not as if the Giants overdrafted a product based on need. After all, Flowers was projected to be a first-round pick and top-ten selection in multiple mock drafts before the Giants turned in a card with his name on it. How does somebody who looks the part in-person and on television become such a flop when it matters most?

There’s no one answer. Making the transition from the college game to the pros is, in some instances, as difficult for offensive linemen as it is for quarterbacks. It’s possible playing under the bright lights of the New York market was too much for Flowers. Perhaps scouts around the league got it wrong. Signing one contract worth millions of dollars may have been enough for him. In fairness, Flowers is still young enough to silence critics and doubters. We can’t say.

Salt is added to this still-uncovered wound when you see who was still on the board when the Giants selected Flowers. Todd Gurley, Melvin Gordon and Marcus Peters stick out, but you can add Andrus Peat to the list of players who would have been better fits than Flowers. That may be enough for you to rank Flowers ahead of Dayne in any list of all-time Giants draft busts. Where you’d put defensive end Cedric Jones, drafted fifth overall in 1996, on that list is up to you.

Flowers’ stormy tenure with the Giants serves as a harsh reminder that draft classes are often more about luck than studying film and interviewing prospects for hours upon hours. Every front office commits a regrettable blunder. Nobody gets it right all of the time.

Next: NFL Draft 2018: Grades for each first-round pick

The biggest shame is that the selection of Flowers was meant to extend quarterback Eli Manning’s championship window. The two-time Super Bowl MVP who found himself running for his life far too often over the past two years may be on the cusp of starting his final season under center for the only NFL franchise he’s known, and he’s going to do so with somebody other than Flowers playing left tackle. Barring a remarkable turnaround, Flowers failing Manning will be his legacy among Giants fans who bother to remember him a decade or so from now.