Pre-draft ‘things I think’: New York Giants GM Joe Schoen has unenviable task

Schoen has to add to the roster now, find a quarterback for later

I think the New York Giants are the most interesting team in the 2025 NFL Draft.

The Giants will almost certainly face the most fascinating decision in the draft, and one that likely shapes the landscape of the first two rounds. That, of course, is whether or not to go all-in and select Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders at No. 3.

A week ago, I thought the debate had been settled. I thought there was no chance the Giants would select Sanders third overall. I still don’t think drafting Sanders will be the play, but let’s acknowledge that there is a chance.

I think I agree with the assessment from ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky regarding the situation GM Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll are in.

“The situation for Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen, it’s as bad a situation as there is in the NFL [for a] head coach/GM combination because football people do what’s best for the team. That’s just how they’re brought up in nature and I would assume that they want to do that,” Orlovsky said. “But then there’s the reality of job. Their reality is that they have to find a way to save their job.”

This is the situation the Giants’ decision-makers are in. This is not Year 1 or Year 2 for Schoen and Daboll. It is Year 4. They are coming off back-to-back awful years. They barely kept their jobs after the team went 3-14 in 2024, and co-owner John Mara made it clear that 2025 had to be better.

Mara, though, also made something else clear. It is time for Schoen and Daboll to stop finding reasons not to do it and to put a rookie on the roster with the potential to be the team’s quarterback of the future.

“Obviously the number one issue for us going into this offseason, is to find our quarterback of the future,” Mara said in January.

Orlovsky goes on to state that picking Carter won’t save the jobs of Schoen and Daboll, but that drafting the right quarterback might.

He could be right about that, but there isn’t a guaranteed “hand him the keys to the franchise from Day 1” option available to the Giants at quarterback in the draft.

Which leaves the Giants trying to accomplish two goals that don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand.

• They need to find a way to get a potential franchise quarterback of the future in a class where everyone acknowledges those are in short supply, and beyond Cam Ward there is no consensus who they are. That’s the what’s best for the team/organization part that Orlovsky referenced.
• They need to put a good enough product on the field and win enough games that Mara and Steve Tisch decide to keep them around to try and develop that quarterback.

Schoen clearly understands both tasks that are on his crowded plate. When he spoke to media at...