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You can make it out of a mean, unforgiving place rife with gun violence, such as the Liberty City section of Miami, and make something of yourself, because we have seen Teddy Bridgewater do it and we have seen Amari Cooper do it. For a while, we saw Antonio Brown do it. And until Thursday …
You can make it out of a mean, unforgiving place rife with gun violence, such as the Liberty City section of Miami, and make something of yourself, because we have seen Teddy Bridgewater do it and we have seen Amari Cooper do it.
For a while, we saw Antonio Brown do it.
And until Thursday night, we saw DeAndre Baker do it.
Then we were harshly reminded, and the Giants and Dave Gettleman and Joe Judge were harshly reminded, that some of them cannot escape whatever demons they dreamed they could leave behind.
If the allegations are true, DeAndre Baker has revealed himself as a thug, who, at the mercy of the judicial system, may very well have shot his NFL career to hell and shot Gettleman’s scouting acumen and visions of a championship culture to hell along with it.
The kid Gettleman traded up into the first round of the 2019 NFL Draft to be his lockdown corner now is in grave jeopardy of being destined to be his locked-up corner.
How, with all the investigation into the backgrounds of these college prospects, were there no red flags on DeAndre Baker?
And Gettleman thought Odell Beckham Jr. and Janoris Jenkins were problem children?
The Miramar PD arrest warrant Thursday night for Baker — four counts of armed robbery with a firearm and four counts of aggravated assault with a firearm — is a black eye for Gettleman and the Giants and a debilitating blow to his rebuilding plan.
So much for free-agent signing CB James Bradberry mentoring Baker. Sam Beal, anyone? Somebody get Logan Ryan on the phone pronto before Jets GM Joe Douglas does.
And the disturbing details that have emerged — Baker and Seahawks pal Quinton Dunbar allegedly stealing $12,400 in cash and four watches valued at $61,100, according to the police report, while armed with semi-automatic weapons after allegedly losing 70G at a card game gone awry at a party two nights earlier, with one report alleging Baker instructed a different accomplice in a red mask to shoot someone, though thankfully he did not — put Gettleman back on the hot seat following John Mara’s edict that he improve his batting average in his third season on the job.
Making Baker the first cornerback selected in that draft — zero interceptions as a rookie — is equivalent to Gettleman never even taking the bat off his shoulder and taking a called strike three in the bottom of the ninth with the tying run on third.
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Gettleman surrendered picks No. 37, 132 and 142 to make Baker the 30th pick of a draft that also delivered Daniel Jones and Dexter Lawrence.
“The last guy we traded up for we feel is the best cover corner in the draft, the kid from Georgia, DeAndre Baker,” Gettleman said at the time. “We feel like we got three guys that are going to impact this franchise for a long time.”
Wrong.
It turns out there were indeed warning signs about Baker’s maturity that Gettleman and the Giants missed. Draft analyst Tony Pauline of Pro Football Network reported on several prior to the 2019 scouting combine.
“Sources were telling me he was not taking combine training seriously,” Pauline told The Post. “He was kind of an entitled type of kid, he expected things to come very easy to him, he didn’t look good in drills. And then if you go back, and you look at his 2019 combine, he was a huge disappointment.
“This year when I was at the Senior Bowl practices, the last day of practice, I was talking to some of the Giant people, they didn’t tell me he was a bad guy or anything, they said he’s dumb as dirt. He struggled taking instruction in coaching, he basically likes to do it his own way.”
Baker was dressed down by teammates during his rookie season for his laissez-faire preparation. Pauline had Baker as his sixth-best corner.
“I would have never taken that guy in the first round. Never,” Pauline said.
Baker was coached at Northwestern High in Miami by Eddie Brown … Antonio Brown’s father. Baker after the draft described himself this way: “A guy whose teammates can always count on me to be there on Sundays and every other day of the week.”
Now? NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will be the first judge and jury. After that, who knows? Innocent until proven guilty, yes, of course. But this isn’t the kind of behavior that Joe Judge will tolerate. Or any head coach. Or any franchise should. DeAndre Baker should only hope and pray that his next teammates are not inmates.
