Ranking the Giants' Best Free Agency Moves So Far

In the aftermath of one of the most disappointing seasons in the franchise’s century-long history, where the New York Giants went 3-14, lost 10 consecutive contests, and shuffled through four different quarterbacks and countless nagging injuries, general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll knew they needed to craft up a very convincing plan if they wanted to spare their jobs for at least one more year.

The duo’s challenge of enticing Giants ownership to let them maintain control of the wheel in East Rutherford would start with showing them they could revitalize the talent-ridden-roster left behind with mostly raw and inexperienced pieces at the end of the 2024 season.

Their first well to tap into would be the free agent market, a segment of the offseason that wasn’t very friendly to Schoen and company last spring.

The Giants' front office let several of their biggest pieces from the first two years of the regime walk out of the building, notably the departures of running back Saquon Barkley, captured on Hard Knocks, and safety Xavier McKinney.

Meanwhile, many of the players they brought into the team never panned out in any impactful way and are now back on the open market. This leaves the Giants’ locker room with a ton of holes at key positions that must be filled with depth for the next campaign.

Schoen had a fairly nice draft to partly cure his shortcomings and supply the roster with a few promising bucks last year, but now he must partner them with proven veterans to meet the biggest needs and give the Giants a chance to compete in 2025.

More importantly, spare him and Daboll’s seats for the next phases of their plan, which still has John Mara bought in.

With the most important wave of the free agent buying spree behind the league, the Giants have done a fairly solid job of finding the right puzzle pieces to help the cause in a male-or-break season.

They are still without an answer to their biggest question mark at the quarterback position. Still, they are managing to surround whoever fills that role with respectable talent than what had previously failed them last season.

Among those signings, these are arguably the best free agent moves by the Giants as they inch closer to the NFL Draft in Green Bay.

1. Paulson Adebo, CB

The Giants’ partnership with former New Orleans Saints cornerback Paulson Adebo may have been their first external move after the free agency negotiating window opened on March 10th. Still, it was the best move they could have made besides recruiting the evasive veteran quarterback.

With Adebo moving from the Bayou to East Rutherford to join the Giants’ secondary, the team managed to find a ballhawk who can contend to assume the role of the No. 1 corner next season.

This was a significant need after the position group's atrocious season in 2024, which included ranking 27th in PFF coverage grade behind a core of young and untested players.

In last year’s draft, Joe Schoen seems to have found a future stud in slot cornerback Dru Phillips, a rare third-round selection who excelled early and held the sixth-best coverage numbers among rookie cornerbacks.

Besides his stronghold on the slot corner hole, the rest of the Giants secondary could be up for grabs in terms of starting jobs.

The Giants expect Adebo to win one of those perimeter spots at the end of the summer and play alongside either Deonte Banks or Cor’Dale Flott, both of whom he still outperformed in an injury-limited campaign.

In seven games played last season before he was sidelined with a broken femur, Adebo tallied 52 total tackles (43 solo), three interceptions, and 10 pass deflections in 262 coverage snaps.

His eye for tracking the football in one-on-one matchups and breaking up plays with abundance makes him an extremely valuable asset to Shane Bowen’s defense, and he will still have room for growth if he stays healthy.

Outside of his injury this past fall, Adebo has appeared in 35 games in the past three seasons for New Orleans and ascended into their No. 2 cornerback behind the veteran Marshon Lattimore, who was traded to Washington in the middle of the year.

Even with his ailment, he still produced the second-lowest opponent reception percentage for defenders with at least 283 coverage snaps at 59.6% and allowed just one touchdown with a low missed tackle rate of 8.1%.

He now has the chance to earn a promotion to the top dog in New York’s corps and will likely be tested against tougher receiving targets on the Giants schedule. Adebo is being paid the big bucks at $18 million per year to strengthen the secondary and should if he keeps his act clean.

And if he can adjust to playing in a more zone-oriented defensive system that Bowen and the Giants have implemented. That isn't to say his premier press man skills won’t come in handy when they need to stop the top pass catcher from taking over the game.

2. Jevon Holland, S

Oct 27, 2024; Miami Gardens, Florida, USA; Miami Dolphins safety Jevon Holland (8) enters the field before the game against the Arizona Cardinals at Hard Rock Stadium. | Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

The Giants’ quest to upgrade their defensive secondary was not fully quenched by the signing of Paulson Adebo on the opening day of the legal negotiating window. A few days later, they also secured one of the best available safeties in Jevon Holland to beef up the leadership in that position group.

Like Adebo, the move was sorely necessary as the Giants weren’t expected to retain impending free agent Jason Pinnock, whose 2024 season was highly disappointing for Big Blue.

The Giants were able to discover another promising rookie in their second-round pick, Tyler Nubin. He was one of the biggest producers on the defensive side of the ball last season, but injuries also cut short his year, and the depth was nonexistent to replace him.

New York also lost a huge leadership factor during the 2024 offseason when Xavier McKinney, a captain and top-three producer with nine interceptions and 27 pass deflections in four seasons, dipped for Green Bay for a more lucrative contract. This left the safeties room as one of the most porous in football.

With Holland moving up from Miami, where he spent his first four years in the NFL, the Giants can hopefully resurrect some of their previous mishaps in the safety position and satisfy those aforementioned needs.

The Dolphins' 2021 second-round pick finished third on the squad with 62 tackles (42 solos), one sack, one forced fumble, and four pass deflections last year.

Holland's aggressive mindset, which is perfect for the Giants' defense, which needs its players to play with a little bit of an edge in big moments.

He isn’t afraid to clamp down on the football and make the important tackles in the run game, although his numbers need to improve a little bit from the career-high 17.1% missed tackle rate he had.

Still, Holland knows how to make the big plays from all different parts of the field and immensely outperformed the lackluster coverage efforts that the Giants received from Pinnock and Nubin. He was even a player who some Giants players highly recruited to come there, meaning they love what he can do for the back end of their defense.

The Giants might have overpaid a little for Holland’s services, especially after they didn’t want to devote a similar offer to McKinney last offseason, and a few of his fellow free agent signees earned less per year with equal or better all-around production.

All faults can be forgiven, though, as Schoen and company fortified their secondary with another transaction that was high on many teams’ free agent big boards.

3. Darius Slayton, WR

Dec 29, 2024; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; New York Giants wide receiver Darius Slayton (86) celebrates after scoring a touchdown reception during the first half against the Indianapolis Colts at MetLife Stadium. | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

Placing the re-signing of wide receiver Darius Slayton in the third slot of these rankings is debatable based on the Giant's pressing needs.

However, the reunion was simply a pleasant surprise for one of the in-house transactions in free agency, and the team should be happy he is back for a seventh season.

At the start of the offseason, the feeling in the room was that Slayton had played his final game as a member of the Giants. The two sides couldn’t agree on a new contract before the 2024 season, and the former fifth-round pick had been vocal about his weariness with all the losing in East Rutherford.

However, the Giants and Slayton must have had a change of heart and agreed to a new contract at the start of free agency, a three-year pact worth $36 million.

The annual value of the deal was actually better for the Giants, too, as Spotrac projected Slayton to command around $15 million per year before the market opened.

Slayton’s potential departure was about to create a sneaky need for a WR2 in the Giants' receiving corps, which would have pulled their attention away from candidates at other key positions. Instead, New York retains one of its most consistent passing targets in the last half-decade and an important veteran voice for the team culture.

Slayton has 92 games under his belt and has hauled in at least 46 passes for 740+ yards and two touchdowns in four seasons.

Even with the arrival of rookie wide receiver Malik Nabers and the immense attention he garnered in the Giants offense, Slayton still collected 71 targets, the third best in the position, and turned it into 574 yards and two touchdowns in 16 games.

What was more commendable from the reunion was the fact that the Giants seemingly learned their lesson about keeping beloved players in their building.

It’s hard to build a winning culture if you don’t have the right voices to bring the best out of the team on the field, and Slayton is one of those underrated players who has done it in his unique way since getting drafted and surpassing expectations as a fifth-round flier.

Now, the Giants will support whichever prospect takes over their offensive huddle with two receiving weapons capable of making plays all over the field.

In Slayton’s case, that is stretching the field and opening up opportunities for his teammates to touch the ball and shred the defense concerned about taking away the long shot.

4. James Hudson III, OT

Former Cleveland Browns offensive tackle James Hudson III — Nov 12, 2023; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Cleveland Browns offensive tackle James Hudson III (66) celebrates a first down against the Baltimore Ravens during the second half at M&T Bank Stadium. | Jessica Rapfogel-Imagn Images

Contrary to the Slayton signing, the Giants' pursuit of free agent options to bolster their offensive line was one of the biggest priorities, as it has been nearly every offseason.

The Giants have been quiet on the guard market, but they were aggressive in securing depth at the offensive tackle position, and ex-Browns blocker James Hudson III was arguably their brighter candidate.

The Giants’ tackle room was a mess last season after All_Pro left tackle Andrew Thomas suffered another season-ending foot injury. His backup, Joshua Ezeudu, has been a complete disaster on the left side and an overall bust draft pick, and their other options brought off the scrap heap never played much better.

As a result, the Giants went from protecting the quarterback in the top 10 of the NFL through the first several weeks of the season to 27th in team pass block win rate by the end of the campaign.

The Giants’ four quarterbacks were sacked 48 times in that same span, leaving them needing to add depth to the tackle holes to boost the team for when the inevitable injuries happen.

Hudson III was buried beneath some decent depth during his time with the Cleveland Browns, but he started in 17 games for them as a swing tackle and amassed over 830 pass-blocking snaps.

This past season, he allowed just 15 overall pressures with zero sacks and was only penalized twice, which has been one of the problems for the Giants’ tackles lately.

In addition, Hudson III held an 84.2% pass block win rate by himself, which isn’t too far off from what Evan Neal achieved in 2024.

Neal has struggled since becoming a top-10 draft selection in 2022, and the Giants may now feel more comfortable shifting him over to guard work after recruiting extra insurance in Hudson’s deal.

Hudson’s agreement was for two years, $12 million, with $4 million in potential incentives if he sees the field a lot in 2025. Given the Giants’ propensity for injuries on the offensive line, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Hudson gets that chance and provides dire flexibility against the pass rush.

5. Ihmir Smith-Marsette, WR/KR

New York Giants wide receiver and return specialist Ihmir Smith-Marsette — Dec 8, 2024; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; New York Giants wide receiver Ihmir Smith-Marsette (87) scores on punt return for a touchdown during the first half against the New Orleans Saints at MetLife Stadium. The play would be called back due to a Giants penalty. | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

For the sake of commending one of their special team moves in the first wave of free agency, another underrated resignation was that of return specialist Ihmir Smith-Marsette.

Smith-Marsette has bounced around the league since he was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings in 2021 and made his name as a punt and kick returner for five teams.

His most successful being the Carolina Panthers and Giants, who signed him after they couldn’t find a good solution during training camp and incumbent Gunner Olszewski suffered a groin injury that summer.

The Giants' special teams operation has been fairly bad for some time, and that continued for most of this past season. Once Smith-Marsette entered the fold a few weeks in, he gave the third realm some hope despite finishing as the 25th-ranked unit according to PFF grading.

Smith-Marsette appeared in 40 overall return snaps for the Giants this season, 29 of which came on punt returns. He averaged 7.9 yards per attempt, finishing 14th highest among returners with 20+ attempts on their resume.

The kickoff return side netted 34.6 yards per return on 11 tries, and Marsette became a hometown hero when he took one back 100 yards for a touchdown in Week 17 against the Indianapolis Colts.

The Giants tried to make their special teams operation work with backup running back Eric Gray, but the former fifth-round pick has had issues securing the catch and protecting the football through contact.

The year before, the Giants had nobody grade above 63.8 in either category and had to shuffle through eight players with less overall production than Smith-Marsette.

Locking Smith-Marsette down for the 2025 season ensures they’ll have a viable weapon who can change field position for the offense with his field vision and receiver-style speed and shiftiness. Perhaps his career will finally achieve that stability in MetLife Stadium as the Giants seek the same from their return department.