Big Blue View
Will the New York Giants need a safety in the 2027 NFL Draft?
The 2026 NFL Draft boasted an incredibly deep and talented safety class, and many people were calling on the Giants to dip into that class to reinforce their secondary. The Giants instead opted to roll with Jevon Holland and Tyler Nubin, with modest reinforcements from free agency.
How that plays out remains to be seen, but the possibility is there that they might need to draft one. Ar’Darius Washington is on a one-year contract, while Tyler Nubin is at a crossroads following a disappointing sophomore campaign.
If the Giants feel as though they need to add a safety in 2027, they could wind up targeting Koi Perich of Oregon. Perich played the first two years of his college career at Minnesota, taking over for Tyler Nubin after he was drafted by the Giants. Perich established himself as a ball-hawking playmaker at Minnesota, and is now transferring to Oregon. Perich has the chance to separate himself as a top safety this year, and is currently considered a mid-second round pick at 50th overall on the Consensus Big Board.
Perich is a good-sized safety, listed at 6-foot-1, 200 pounds, with excellent athletic traits. In addition to having good size, he appears to have very good long speed as well as fluid hips and quick, smooth feet in coverage. Perich’s speed, range and fluidity to effectively execute post-snap coverage rotations and easily get into position as a center fielder. Likewise, his range allows him to cover a broad swath of field as a free safety, and his feet and hips allow him to match up in coverage.
Perich is a playmaking safety who has 6 interceptions and 2 forced fumbles over the last two years. He has the potential to unlock even more upside on an Oregon defense that returns a talented and experienced defensive front. Likewise, Oregon’s potent offense will force opponents to throw to keep up, creating more opportunities for Perich to take the ball away.
He appears comfortable in deep coverage zones, processing quickly from a two-deep or single-high alignment. He has a quick trigger which allows him to play even faster than his range suggests that he’ll time, and seems to react well to route concepts or misdirection.
Perich also brings special teams upside as well. He was a core special teams player for the Golden Gophers, with 174 special teams snaps in 2024 and 164 snaps in 2025. He’s had 35 kick-off returns over the last two years and averaged 23.6 yards per return, and 38 punt returns with an average of 8.1 yards per return. He also has experience on coverage teams, though that was limited to 2024 as his role expanded on defense.
Most notably, Perich needs to improve his box play.
He played more than twice as many snaps in the box in 2025 (338) as he did in 2024 (144),...
