Big Blue View
Many media-generated trade proposals are pie-in-the-sky nonsense. ESPN’s Bill Barnwell, though, has proposed two trades that make sense for the New York Giants, getting the team a wide receiver, removing a couple of players the Giants don’t have a real use for, and adding some 2026 draft capital.
Barnwell’s proposal:
Giants get: WR Jakobi Meyers, 2026 fourth-round pick, cash considerations
Raiders get: CB Deonte Banks, 2026 fifth-round pick
Barnwell says:
Meyers has been quiet for the Raiders this season. After a 98-yard day for Las Vegas in the opening-week win over the Patriots, Meyers has averaged just 46 yards per game since. The 28-year-old is in the final year of his three-year, $33 million deal, and while Meyers requested a trade in camp, the Raiders declined to deal their top wideout. This will likely be his last season in silver and black, and Vegas probably wouldn’t mind moving the $7 million remaining on Meyers’ deal in 2025 elsewhere.
The Raiders would have to eat some of that money to get this deal done, but let’s say they pay $3 million as part of this trade and open up a spot in their lineup for second-round pick Jack Bech. In return, they would land the fourth cornerback off the board in the 2023 draft in Banks. Still only 24, Banks has the size (6-foot-2) and frame that Pete Carroll typically loves in his CBs, a position where the Raiders are hardly settled. Eric Stokes is on a one-year deal, while Kyu Blu Kelly has allowed a 122.5 rating in coverage, per Pro Football Reference.
The Giants clearly liked Banks enough to use a first-round pick on him, but he has never put things together in New York. The Giants stripped Banks of his starting job this season, rotating him with Cor’Dale Flott across from Paulson Adebo. And over the past few weeks, Banks was beaten on a double-move for a touchdown by the Chargers’ Quentin Johnston in Week 4 and then committed a 25-yard pass interference penalty early in the Week 5 Saints game against Chris Olave. He has played just 10 defensive snaps over the past two weeks, seemingly falling out of the rotation at cornerback.
Meyers is not the best wide receiver potentially available (we have discussed options here and here). He is also in the final year of his contract, so the Giants would have to get a contract extension done with him first to make this move viable.
Still, there are so many positives to this deal for New York. Provided, of course, they get Meyers to sign beyond this year. Rentals for the rest of the season don’t make sense for the Giants. The positives I see:
