Big Blue View
Can the Giants turn into a Big Blue machine in one year?
The time has come for me to offer my final mock draft of the 2025 NFL Draft process for the New York Giants.
Before I started on my draft, I asked Ed whether I should draft as I would, or how I think Joe Schoen would.
He told me to treat it as “my” draft, so that’s how I went about it. While I was thinking about my strategy, I looked at the strengths and weaknesses of this draft class, a quip by Daniel Jeremiah crystalized the nature of this draft in my mind.
“This isn’t a ‘Stars’ draft, this is a ‘Starters’ draft.”
This year’s class is incredibly deep with starting talent, but not so much with future stars. So the fact that the Giants are sitting at No. 3 overall gives them leverage that other teams can’t match.
So I decided to go off the beaten path a bit. And in doing so I circled back to my preferred strategy from 2018.
That year I wanted to pass up on the shiny object (Saquon Barkley) and instead draft Quentin Nelson. At the same time, I also advocated for taking Lamar Jackson after manipulating the draft board. I believe that the Giants could have combined the strategies employed by the Colts and Ravens, and have been a better team for it.
I also believe that the big problem with the Giants’ defense isn’t personnel based. The no-name defensive line played far better than they got credit for after Dexter Lawrence went down, and the Giants already have a great pass rush.
(The Giants were eighth in sacks, fifth in sack rate, and the only team with three defenders in the top 30 of High Quality Sack rate.)
Their problem is one of volume. The Giants’ defense saw the third-fewest pass attempts against, while also seeing the sixth-most rushing yards against last year. Their offense was utterly unable to dictate the terms of games to opponents. Opponents were never forced to pass to keep up with the Giants’ offense, so the defense was constantly put in poor positions.
So my other directive is to add pieces to the offense which could allow them to dictate the game and put the defense in position to hunt quarterbacks.
I used the mock draft simulator at the NFL Mock Draft Database for this mock.
I’m going to go through my reasoning for each move, but first the bottom line up front.
This might sting, and it’ll probably draw some ire, but I’m auctioning off the “blue chip” player here.
I’m not sold that Carter is so significantly better than everyone else his position that you don’t listen to offers — he’s good, but I don’t think he’s as good as Micah Parsons or Myles Garrett. Frankly, this is an absurdly stacked edge defender class and if I can get 90 or 80...
