{"id":209252,"date":"2026-04-25T04:47:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T04:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/209252\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T04:47:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T04:47:19","slug":"arvell-reese-francis-mauigoa-pleasant-giants-surprises-for-john-harbaugh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/209252\/","title":{"rendered":"Arvell Reese, Francis Mauigoa pleasant Giants surprises for John Harbaugh"},"content":{"rendered":"

All that planning. Simulation after simulation. Mock draft after mock draft. Hours, days and weeks trying to figure out what will happen with the four picks in front of you to determine who might be available at No. 5.<\/p>\n

And then, doing it all again for pick No. 10.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So much effort and angst. Will he be there? He will never drop to us. What might [fill in the name of a team] do, will someone trade out, how will our draft board rankings hold up when we are on the clock?<\/p>\n

The Giants went through all of it. Of course they did. That is the job of the general manager and that is how Joe Schoen spent so much of his time leading up to this past Thursday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Joe probably ran about a zillion mocks \u2014 no, maybe that\u2019s a slight exaggeration,\u2019\u2019 head coach John Harbaugh said. \u201cA zillion seems like a high number, but maybe it was a couple million.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Schoen smiled.<\/p>\n

\u201cClose,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

All that strategizing and conjecture must have led to some sort of expert analysis as to the players the Giants would get at 5 and 10. You would think so. You would be wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis one didn\u2019t come up,\u2019\u2019 Harbaugh said. \u201cThis was not one that was really anticipated.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThis one\u2019\u2019 turned out to be linebacker Arvell Reese from Ohio State at No. 5 and offensive lineman Sisi Mauigoa from Miami at No. 10<\/a>. All those countless permutations and combinations, yet this one was not anticipated.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust shows you that, you know reality is \u2014 fiction is stranger than reality?\u2019\u2019 Harbaugh said. \u201cReality is stranger than fiction? It\u2019s one of the two. You know what I\u2019m saying, right? This is exciting. This is not expected. This is something that\u2019s really a great, a great opportunity for us.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\"NewGiants draft picks Arvell Reese (l.) and Francis Mauigoa hold up their jerseys during their introduction at Quest Diagnostics Training Center. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n

Harbaugh in 18 years with the Ravens never had the luxury of two top-10 picks in any draft. Heck, he had only one top-10 pick \u2014 No. 6 in 2016 \u2014 so he can be excused for seeming a bit giddy after these two selections were in the books.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s two picks that strengthen us down the middle,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cDown the middle of our offense, down the middle of our defense. These are two, these are great players, these are two top-five players in this draft, in our opinion. You couldn\u2019t do any better.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

These two players are now officially the first draft picks for the Harbaugh Giants. He demanded strength down the middle in Baltimore and knew he needed it to establish his culture with his new franchise.<\/p>\n

\"NewGiants head coach John Harbaugh and general manager Joe Schoen respond to questions from reporters about players selected in the NFL draft. Noah K. Murray for NY Post<\/p>\n

Reese brings a ferocity to the interior of the defense<\/a>. He was asked what he knows about Harbaugh\u2019s Ravens teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe image that I remember growing up, I always feel like the Ravens played fast and violent and that\u2019s kinda what I try to model my game after, being fast and violent,\u2019\u2019 Reese said Friday at the Giants facility.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fast and violent. Which one does he prefer?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think both are important but if you\u2019re playing defense, you got to be violent,\u201d Reese said. \u201cLike, you got to be thinking of doing something violent.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Sounds like a mindset Harbaugh desires<\/a> for his defense.<\/p>\n

Mauigoa brings power to the interior of the offensive line. He said he knows about Harbaugh\u2019s teams with the Ravens based on \u201cRay Lewis, that type of style of play comes up with John Harbaugh and how he teaches things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see him as an old-school type of coach and that\u2019s how I like things to be: hard, gritty, no cutting corners.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Mauigoa met Jaxson Dart for the first time and the two exchanged a handshake, a hug and a few words<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cExcited to get it going with him, block my ass off for him,\u2019\u2019 said Mauigoa, who immediately becomes the favorite to win the starting\u00a0job at right guard.<\/p>\n

The first two first-round picks for the Harbaugh Giants are players who fit the Harbaugh mold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All that planning. Simulation after simulation. Mock draft after mock draft. Hours, days and weeks trying to figure…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[47939,51489,34377,9,2683,11,10,22,12258,46065,319],"class_list":["post-209252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-arvell-reese","tag-francis-mauigoa","tag-john-harbaugh","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-giants","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-draft","tag-nfl-draft-2026","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}