New York Giants Are Stuck In A Corner

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All alternatives were worse, but the New York Giants are stuck in a corner entering the 2025 NFL season. Can they escape?

Prepare for the intense sports debate that only sibling rivalry can conjure. Seesaw Sports, where Dan Salem and Todd Salem throw down on the NFL, MLB, NBA and more. Only on BuzzChomp. Two brothers from New York yell, scream and debate sports.

 

So much of the NFL Draft last week was unexpected, which is great! Those details are worth diving into later, but we MUST begin with a team that has seemingly trapped itself. We are in New York where the New York Giants did everything right and yet, did they? 

The Giants had the third overall pick in a three-player draft. Despite uncertainty at two, they did, indeed, end up with one of the three best assets in edge rusher Abdul Carter. That’s good! Edge rusher was not a need for the team, but they were in no position to be choosy. That’s bad. Any team would love to add Carter, the Giants no exception. That’s good!

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The defensive front of the Giants may now be one of the very best in the NFL as Carter teams up with Dexter Lawrence, the league’s best defensive tackle, and Brian Burns, a Pro Bowl edge rusher in his own right. Add in Kayvon Thibodeaux and the team’s third-round selection, Darius Alexander, and this is an elite bunch, assuming Carter lives up to the hype.

That’s a pretty great starting point for any club, but we know everything comes back to the quarterback position. New York traded back into the first round to select Jaxson Dart as the hopeful franchise QB in the future. 

The assets required to move back into the first round will be inconsequential if Dart turns into a guy. Even if he would have been available at the Giants’ original slotting in round two, there was no reason to risk it if the team really believes in him. Of course, if the team really believes in him, like legitimately thinks he will be the QB to lead this team for a decade-plus, don’t you take him at third overall? It’s a confusing argument on both sides to try to find the value in an upside play at the sport’s most important position. Despite making the “right” moves, are the Giants now trapped?

 

New York Giants Are Stuck In A Corner

 

 

Todd Salem:

It is a risky move to trade up in the draft regardless, made even more so by the fact that most scouts did not think Dart was the second-best passer in the class. Off-field and interview issues aside, most scouts graded Shedeur Sanders as the better quarterback to Dart. Now, obviously, off-field and interview issues are not to be pushed aside for someone planning to be the leader of an entire franchise, so I understand not wanting to take Sanders. Does that make Dart the right move, or just an alternative because the front office felt like it had to take someone? 

We’ll have to see how it plays out, but it feels obvious to me that a secure general manager and head coach would not have made the move for Dart. That doesn’t mean it will fail, but it was a decision at least partially made out of desperation.

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After Dart, though, the rest of the Giants draft went as well as they could have hoped. The aforementioned Alexander was followed up by Cam Skattebo, a much needed pounder at running back, Marcus Mbow, an important offensive line piece who may end up starting as a fifth-round rookie, as well as some flyers at tight end and corner, two positions that needed depth.

Where do you stand on the Giants’ draft overall and perhaps on the Dart selection specifically? If forced to grade, I’d go with an A- overall and a C+ on the Dart move individually but am interested to hear from an “impartial” voice.

 

 

Dan Salem:

New York confirmed what I’ve been saying all offseason, they were going to draft a QB in the first round because they literally had to or risk everyone getting fired mid-year. Knowing that, I take little issue with what the Giants did in the draft. Carter was a great pick at third overall and I’m always a proponent of ‘best player available’ over ‘best player at a position of need.’ You are a bit ahead of yourself crowning New York as having a great defense, but this at least makes them competitive when they weren’t beforehand. Keeping your offense in games goes a very long way towards winning them.

Dart is where things certainly get dicey for the Giants. They saved their season by selecting him and likely maintained institutional order, for lack of a better phrase, by avoiding Sanders. It was a shrewd pick, because Daboll has yet to develop a rookie passer, and that is supposed to be his thing. Yet one must question whether passing on Sanders was the correct move, because most everyone views him as the stronger prospect. The Giants could have picked him in the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th rounds. Talk about a deal!

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Sometimes it’s the moves that you don’t make which define your success and I certainly view this in that light. New York will be better in 2025 because they did not take Sanders, which left them with Dart. Fans like Dart because he went to the same college as Eli Manning. Dart is also positioned nicely to sit on the bench until Russell Wilson hits his wall in mid-November and Jameis Winston has his two good games after that. It’s the perfect learning opportunity for a new QB, no pressure and everything to gain from all sides. Sanders would have been breathing in Wilson’s face from the beginning of August, so avoiding that is a huge win.

I abhor grading a team’s draft, but it’s still a fun exercise. The New York Giants get a B for the Dart pick, because it wasn’t Sanders but is still a viable project at QB. If it doesn’t work, everyone may even get one more year to try again. You couldn’t have said that before the pick. Overall I grade the Giants at a B+ because they didn’t need a pass rusher or quarterback, yet those were their first two picks. They made the right picks, but the team is not markedly better because of them, at least not yet.

 

 

Meet our Sports Writers:

Dan Salem is Lead Editor and Co-owner of BuzzChomp. He’s an award winning Actor, Director and Producer. Visit M Square Productions for his film work, or get lost in his old-school comedy on Pillow Talk TV. You can follow him on X, TikTok and Instagram. His latest film ‘Alone’ is now on Amazon.

Todd Salem is a Staff Writer and Contributing Editor at BuzzChomp. He’s also a champion of fantasy football and fantasy baseball, dominating leagues for over two decades. Comment below on his unfiltered opinions.

New York Giants In A Corner – This Is The End

Photo Credits: giants.com and avinteractive.com; fox10phoenix.com via Getty Images

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