ESPN’s Mel Kiper: Giants’ pick was surprise of the NFL Draft, not Michael Penix Jr.

If ESPN’s NFL Draft analyst Mel Kiper looked glassy-eyed, it’s because he breathed in all of that Giants’ smoke.

Minutes after the first round of the draft was completed, Kiper told ESPN colleague Scott Van Pelt that, for him, the Falcons’ selection of quarterback Michael Penix Jr. wasn’t the shocker of the night (although it was for Kirk Cousins). Kiper said he was more surprised that the Giants snubbed Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy.

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“I had heard for the last couple of months that the Giants were looking at quarterbacks,” Kiper said on Van Pelt’s late-night SportsCenter. “They were sitting at No. 6 and they could’ve traded up to get J.J. McCarthy.

“I said, ‘What, you’re going to forget about Daniel Jones? You’re going to hang him out to dry? You’re not going to take any of explosives receivers when you haven’t had a thousand-yard receiver since 2018, and you have no explosive plays and you have [wide receivers] Malik Nabers and Rome Odunze sitting there? You’re going to take a quarterback?’ And I kept hearing, yeah, yeah, they’re interested in a quarterback.”

While many mock drafts had the Giants trading with the Patriots at No. 3 to grab McCarthy, the quarterback was still there when the Giants, standing pat, had the pick at No. 6.

“And they didn’t have to move up,” Kiper said. “They sat at No. 6 and there’s J.J. McCarthy. … They didn’t take McCarthy. They took the recever, Malik Nabers to help Daniel Jones, who [GM Joe Schoen and coach Brian Daboll] inherited. Most times GM and head coaches want their own guy, and Daniel Jones was coming off injuries and he had some struggles because the offensive line was bad and they didn’t have explosive receivers.

“So I think the Giants may have surprised a lot of people. I’m happy to do what they did, because I like Daniel Jones. So for all the Daniel Jones haters, the heir apparent wasn’t taken at No. 6.”

But Kiper’s comments on Thursday night went against his mock draft, when he predicted (correctly) that the Giants would pick Nabers at No. 6, then select QB Bo Nix in the second round after a trade to move up.

Nix, selected by the Broncos at No. 12, isn’t available, but in the end, Kiper nailed the Giants’ first-rounder after all.