Life has changed dramatically in the past two weeks for Giants defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux. In many ways.
One thing that has changed is the attitude toward him.
“The narrative for sure changed,” Thibodeaux told reporters on Friday. “If you notice, everybody thinks I’m a good guy now, and it’s all funny. Which is hilarious to me because I’ve been the same guy this whole time.”
It’s no surprise. The process of picking over any and all actual or perceived flaws of draft picks ends after the process of picking players ends. It’s one of the realties of the draft industrial complex. Months of obsession with minutiae with a specialized slice of media, all of which becomes forgotten as soon as draft ends and the players get thrown into the same blender with all other players in the league. From that point on, the media pays attention to only a handful of them.
One of them is Thibodeaux, given the things said and written about him before the draft. It clearly bugged him. And it should have. Especially since there’s a chance that some of the things being said regarding attributes that possibly would cause him to fall out of the top 10 were likely planted by teams that desperately wanted him to fall out of the top 10, so that they could draft him.
