Entering the offseason, New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen was very transparent about one specific thing: he wasn’t comfortable with the team’s interior defensive line depth and planned to address it.
Schoen did that by signing Rakeem Nunez-Roches but he wasn’t done there.
During the pre-draft process, the Giants met with and worked out several interior linemen, including Western Kentucky’s Brodric Martin. And all along, Martin expected to land in New York.
“I heard third round from one team and that was the Giants,” Martin told the Detroit Lions Podcast, hosted by Lions Wire editor Jeff Risdon. “But when I saw that they traded (up) . . . I was sitting downstairs in the lobby of the hotel and once I saw that the Giants had traded (up), I just went upstairs and got myself something to eat.”
Martin assumed he had missed his Day 2 opportunity after the Giants traded up to select Tennessee wide receiver Jalin Hyatt. In his mind, it was Big Blue or bust until Day 3.
Fortunately for Martin, fate had a different plan.
23 picks after the Giants selected Hyatt, Martin’s phone rang. It was the Detroit Lions and he was officially drafted into the NFL. It may not have been the team he expected but it all worked out for the 23-year-old nonetheless.
