While the most honest observers will tell you New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen did a serviceable job in rebalancing the scales of the team’s roster during free agency last month, the results just aren’t giving SI.com’s Connor Orr, who compiled his NFL power rankings ahead of the draft, any serious confidence in their future.
Orr, who has been very dim on the Giants’ status among the other 31 teams in the past, ranked the franchise No. 28 on the latest hierarchy for MMQB, sitting ahead of only four organizations: the Carolina Panthers (29th), New Orleans Saints (30th), Cleveland Browns (31st), and Tennessee Titans (32nd).
It was a slightly higher stoop than what the Giants have been used to, dating back to the start of the 2024 regular season when they were constant neighbors at the basement of the league. Just a few weeks earlier, they were slated 30th overall by Pro Football Network in their list, which was heavily predicated on the lack of a reliable quarterback option at that time.
So now, suddenly, there is a slight boost from where the Giants have long resided in the dark corner of football irrelevancy?
Their recent signings of two veteran bridge options, Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston, have helped the cause. Still, the larger and newer question is to what extent it moves the needle for the organization.
“Count me marginally in on the Giants this year, though my question is an open-ended one: How many wins would this team have to log with Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston to sell the fan base on the status quo at the head coach position?” Orr said.
“It’s an honest question and one that should be treated with some nuance, especially with a potentially more robust QB class incoming in 2026 (and Brian Daboll’s work in developing a we-don’t-remember-how-raw Josh Allen being a major draw to New York in the first place).”
While it is hard to pin the entirety of the Giants quarterback debacle on Schoen and Daboll's shoulders, the two didn’t ask to make Daniel Jones their guy when they arrived in East Rutherford at the beginning of 2022. Jones, the former No. 6 pick of the Dave Gettleman era, was thrust onto them to try to get the most out of him in a looming contract year.
As time would tell, Daboll would get Jones to play at his most elite level in six years with New York, posting a 9-7-1 record that coasted the team into the playoffs and through their first postseason victory in over a decade.
On the other hand, the Duke product would regress again, leaving the current regime to search for another answer in part to salvage its jobs.
To make it work for at least the 2025 campaign, the Giants knew they needed to find a combination of a veteran gunslinger who could jump into the starting role in Week 1 and a rookie prospect to come in and learn behind him until the torch was ready to be passed on to the hopeful franchise savior.
After attempting to secure the former with Matthew Stafford and Aaron Rodgers, the Giants fell back on Winston, a journeyman with starting experience, as an insurance policy before reuniting in talks with Wilson and finally moving him over to the Big Apple as the expected No. 1 option for Daboll and the offense in the upcoming season.
But as Orr points out, the acquisitions of the two incumbent passers could seemingly have thrown a wrench into the most crucial element of the Giants offseason. That is recruiting a quarterback from the top of the draft to become the missing piece to the puzzle that hasn’t been seen since Eli Manning and could solidify the offense for years.
With Wilson under center come September and a slew of other reinforcements in numerous key positions, the Giants are likely to take on the approach of selecting one of the 2025 class’s top prospects that can help them notch wins into the column this year, a dilemma presumably between Colorado’s Travis Hunter and Penn State’s Abdul Carter.
If it worked out to perfection, that scenario could certainly catapult the Giants back into some discussion in the NFL scene and ownership’s favor as a wild card team in the NFC, but what if it just as well doesn't?
The franchise would be back to square one, as only Winston has a deal beyond one season. It would be another grave setback for a team that would have to hope they are within range to go fishing for a rookie in the following 2026 group.
It’s not out of the realm of possibility that the Giants figure out a way to pair the best defensive player available at No. 3 with a sneaky grab of a quarterback in the first or early second round in April, such as a Shedeur Sanders or Jalen Milroe, which would ultimately preserve a complete disaster from befalling the offseason for a second straight time.
Until we see how that plays out, it will be hard for some like Orr to immediately buy into Schoen and Daboll's plan for the Giants. The best-case scenario is to hope the Giants check off both boxes on their to-do list, tally enough wins to satisfy the forces against them, and combine it all to present a roster capable of growing and further competing as time goes on.
