If you squint, you can see it. New York lost Odell Beckham and Brandon Marshall for the season before the team even won its first game. Both players will be back, along with 24-year-old Sterling Shepard and not-yet-24-year-old Evan Engram. The Giants also signed Cody Latimer and added a quality left tackle in veteran Nate Solder. New York made the playoffs two years ago, and while Eli Manning had one of the worst seasons of his career in 2017, you can see a high-level functioning offense with new head coach Pat Shurmur, new OC Mike Shula, Manning, Beckham/Marshall/Shephard/Engram, and rookie RB Saquon Barkley.

But I’d be floored if the Giants took a RB with the second overall pick. In my opinion, New York is going to trade the second pick for a king’s ransom or draft a quarterback.  And it’s because the Giants have an aging, below-average quarterback as their QB1, and that’s true even though his name is Manning.

Even if you ignored 2017 due to all of the injuries the Giants offense experienced, it’s not like there would be a lot of reason for optimism about how well Manning would play into his late 30s.  Why’s that?

1) At age 35 in 2016, Manning was below-average, ranking 22nd out of 31 qualifying passers in ANY/A.

2) Manning was born on January 3rd, making him “old for his age” if you know what I mean. Had Manning been born four days earlier, he would have been considered 36 in 2016, 37 in 2017, and 38 this season.

3) Even if you give Manning the benefit of the doubt and ignore his 2017 performance and the fact that he’s old for his age, we wouldn’t expect a below-average QB at age 35 to be average at age 37, much less average at age 38 or 39. You would expect a QB to lose about 0.5 ANY/A from age 35 to age 37, and it’s not like Manning started from a very high porch.

Since Manning didn’t have much left to lose, the effects of age will likely hit him hard. The graph below shows Manning’s RANY/A — i.e., his Relative ANY/A, which is just ANY/A minus league average ANY/A — for each year of his career.  He had sustained regular season success for a five-year period from 2008 to 2012, and another mini-peak in 2014 and 2015, but the graph doesn’t pain the picture of a quarterback who will be a difference maker in 2018 or 2019 as his physical skills decline.

I’m not so sure I’d take a 37 (and soon to be 38) year old Manning over a rookie QB for this season alone.  But when considering the direction of the team for the next 5 years, it would seem to be a no-brainer. Drew Brees is also a January baby and is two years older than Manning, but he started from a much better perch. During his age 34-36 seasons, he ranked 4th in ANY/A; during Manning’s age 34-36 seasons, he ranked 20th out of 24 qualifying passers. So while Brees at ages 37 and 38 has been good, and he might still be good at ages 39 and 40, it’s unsupported by the evidence to expect a lesser quarterback to age as gracefully, since it’s elite quarterbacks that have the flattest aging curves.

What do you think the Giants will do?