After looking Michael Strahan in the eye, Kayvon Thibodeaux took a seat underneath Lawrence Taylor’s towering presence.

On the morning of April 14 — two weeks before the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft — the two best pass rushers in the class were on a joint visit to Giants headquarters in East Rutherford. By this time, most scouts and personnel executives in the facility already were sold on Thibodeaux’s talent and convinced that his much-questioned commitment to football was of no concern, but he needed to check a box for the coaches who will be most responsible for his rookie development.

So, Thibodeaux and Aidan Hutchinson exited their meant-to-impress face-to-face meeting with Strahan. They walked into a room with a large photo of Taylor hanging on the wall to listen to a 15-minute installation of the Giants’ defense. Hutchinson had the advantage of playing in a similar scheme at Michigan, but Thibodeaux filled pages of a notebook with instructions different than he learned in Oregon’s system.

A subsequent 15 minutes spent reviewing college tape of both players had just ended when outside linebackers coach Drew Wilkins fired off a question: