Giants may be stuck with Ereck Flowers

The Giants might be stuck with Ereck Flowers after finding no draft day trade takers for him.

Dave Gettleman filled a lot of holes for the Giants during the NFL Draft, but he failed to unload one player the team no longer wants. The GM’s misevaluation of Ereck Flowers’ potential trade value may force the team to give the offensive lineman another year to save his career.

Reports from ESPN claim the Giants were very willing to unload Flowers during the draft. The only problem is that Gettleman wanted to receive a mid-round pick for the former first-round pick. That, combined with Flowers’ guaranteed salary of $2.4 million, seems to have turned potential suitors off.

Now the Giants and Flowers are stuck in a very awkward position. Clearly, the big offensive lineman knows his team wanted to move him during the draft. There have even been reports that part of the team’s dissatisfaction with Flowers is his inability to bond with his fellow offensive linemen. Some teammates also allegedly believe he could have played through the injury that ended his 2017 season prematurely.

To put it mildly, if the Giants really want Flowers to come back and play this season, they have a lot of fence mending to do. Their job is being made even more difficult by the fact that Flowers has chosen to train away from the team in South Florida. Electing to train with his teammates in voluntary workouts could have gone a long way towards fixing Flowers’ relationships with his teammates.

Add it all up and this has to go down as a pretty serious error by Gettleman. Failing to deal Flowers during the draft has nothing but negative potential impacts for his franchise. If the Giants do find a taker for Flowers at this point, they’ll be lucky to get any sort of meaningful asset in return. At best, they will receive a late round pick that won’t arrive for another year.

The other option is to bring Flowers back into the fold and hope his play improves. That could potentially alienate the locker room. The last thing the Giants need this season is a malcontent to make life more difficult under new coach Pat Shurmur.

Next: NFL Draft Grades: How did the Giants grade out?

Ereck Flowers is still a member of the New York Giants, but that’s only because Dave Gettleman overestimated his value during the draft. It may be a mistake that continues to haunt the team all season long.