“What is going on with the Giants?’’
That question was raised early and often the past two-plus weeks as flocks of NFL personnel gathered in two cities that are as different as the events they hosted.
There is a week of scouting at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., that runs directly into the week of Super Bowl hype, held this year, for the first time, in Las Vegas. There was a time when “Vegas” was taboo in NFL circles, but greed is good and gambling is now embraced and “Viva, Las Vegas’’ is hummed at the NFL office as the money rolls in.
The Senior Bowl is part of the final stages of the in-the-weeds scouting process that the best teams excel at to survey the obvious top players and to uncover the gems and lesser-known prospects for the upcoming NFL Draft (without the under-the-radar work that takes place during the Senior Bowl, it’s not possible for the two teams to make it to the Super Bowl). This process really heads for home at the end of February at the Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, and machinations for trades and deals get cooking at the end of March at the NFL owners meeting, held this year in Orlando.
