General Manager Jerry Reese NFL Combine Media Sessions

Jerry Reese at the NFL Combine – © USA TODAY Sports Images

General Manager Jerry Reese NFL Combine Media Sessions: Video clips of General Manager Jerry Reese’s media sessions at the NFL Combine on Saturday are available at Giants.com:

• Main Press Conference (Video)
• Media Session (Video)

Some tidbits of note:

• Reese on picking at #12 in the first round: “We’ll try and get the best player available on the board. We’ll keep our options open there. If someone wants to come up to 12 and entertain us moving back, we’ll consider that as well.”

• Reese on the salary cap being raised from $123 million to reportedly $130-132 million: “Anything is better than flat. It makes a difference to me…It’s been pretty flat for the last few years. It’s hard to maintain a high-caliber roster with a flat salary cap, especially when you’re picking late and last some of the times you’re picking. It’s not a lot higher, but it’s better than nothing.”

• Reese on approaching the free agent market: “The last couple of years it’s been a pretty saturated market. If there are guys you like and you have the money, you can go get them. But if you can hold your water there will probably be some guys available in the second and third wave (of free agency)…If you have the funds available to extend (your own) guys and tie them up, we’ve done that a lot in the past. We think right now it’s best to see what the market is and make our move from there.”

• Reese on WR Hakeem Nicks, DE Justin Tuck, and LB Jon Beason, all who will be free agents on March 11: “I have talks with all of those guys and free agency means free agency. It means you go out and try to get as much money as you can. I’m always in favor of guys getting as much money as they can. Justin deserves to see what the market is. We’d love to have him back, but we’ll see where it goes. Beason as well. We’ve had some talks with him and hopefully we’ll be able to get him back as well. Who knows? If we can get something done maybe neither one of those guys will go, but we’ll leave our options open and I’m sure they’ll do the same.”

• Reese on RB David Wilson, who is recovering from offseason neck surgery: “Obviously, we can’t put all our eggs in that basket. We will continue to look for running backs in free agency and the draft as well.”

• Reese on fixing the offensive line: “You start in-house with your offensive line. We (have) drafted a few young players and hopefully they can grow into a role for us. Obviously, you look at free agency and we have a couple guys that ended on (Injured Reserve) for us last year. We’ll see what their status is moving forward and, of course, the draft there seems to be some good offensive linemen in this draft…Obviously we’ll go out in free agency and we’ll see where we can find some guys that can fill some holes for us…The No. 1 factor is who is going to be healthy. We’ve got to see Chris (Snee) and David Baas – those guys went down for us early in the season – if they are going to be healthy, if they’re going to come back and be contributors. Everything else will take care of itself after that…Both (Snee and Baas) want to play. I’ve talked to them and they want to play. They had significant injuries and right now they seem to be on a good track to recovery and we’ll see where it goes.”

• More from Reese on OG Chris Snee: “Is he going to be healthy? That’s the number one thing. Obviously he’s got a big contract. That’s an issue as well. All of that will get hashed out when we figure out if he’s going to be healthy or not…I talked to Chris Snee and he definitely wants to play. He has significant injuries and he’s not a baby at this point in his career. That always factors in, your age.”

• Reese on what he looks for in an offensive lineman: “You just want some big nasty guys up front who can keep our quarterback upright. We always look for versatile guys on the offensive line. The more you can do, the better you are for us. If a guy can play some guard, some tackle, some center, the more versatile, we like it.”

• Reese on changing offensive coordinators: “It was time to make a change…(new coordinator Ben McAdoo is) a bright guy, well-prepared. I think he’s going to bring some new life. Obviously Coach (Kevin) Gilbride did a terrific job for us, but the change is going to energize our offense a little bit and get some new learning for our quarterback and our offensive staff. He’s an interesting guy. He’s very bright…It was time to make a change. I think everybody is excited about what’s going on.”

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