ESPN Includes Surprising Giants Rookie for Way-too-Early ROY Honors

The 2025 NFL draft is about a week old, and many rookies have yet to play for their respective teams, let alone hit the field for the rookie minicamp. But that hasn’t stopped some from staking their claims regarding some postseason honors, including Rookie of the Year candidates.

ESPN’s Ben Solak has two Giants draft picks among his choices for Rookie of the Year honors on both sides of the ball, one obvious and the other surprising.

The obvious choice is outside linebacker Abdul Carter, the third overall pick out of Penn State, among seven defensive candidates Solak has for the honors of Defensive Rookie of the Year. According to Solak’s list, Carter is ranked third among seven candidates, just ahead of former Colorado cornerback/receiver Travis Hunter, now of Jacksonville, who went one pick before Carter.

Solak's surprising pick comes on the offensive side of the ball. He chose Giants rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart, whom he has ranked as No. 11 on a list of 18 possible candidates. This is surprising not so much because Dart is a bad player or lacks potential but because for a player to have a chance at ROY honors, he has to get on the field and play.

Giants head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen have both said the plan for Dart is to have him sit for the coming season, giving him a chance to smooth out any rough edges that might preclude him from having success once he does hit the field, and acclimate to all the little intricacies that successful NFL quarterbacks do to become winners, things he’s expected to pick up from being around veterans Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston.

That being said, sometimes the best-laid plans go astray, such as when the Giants signed undrafted free agent Tommy DeVito with the expectation of having him stay on the practice squad to develop as a rookie, only to be forced to play DeVito when injuries wiped out the quarterbacks on the roster. DeVito proved ready to step onto an NFL gridiron and led the team to three wins as a starter.

So, who’s to say that Dart can't replicate that success if he’s pressed into early action? One would have to think he absolutely can, but with that said, there’s a reason why Daboll and Schoen have both been open about the plan for Dart as a rookie, which is for him to take a redshirt season.

That plan makes it surprising to see Dart mentioned for any ROY honors at this point in the calendar year, though we suppose you can’t eliminate the slim possibility.

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