Giants Find Surprising Trade Partner in New PFF Mock Draft

The New York Giants are just a couple more disappointing performances away from securing the first overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft and their first ownership of the event's most coveted slot in about six decades.

If that feat becomes official in the final two weeks of the regular season, during which they would have to fall to the Las Vegas Raiders in their Week 17 meeting to separate themselves in the order, one could bet that the phone lines will be busy in East Rutherford as rival teams look to strike a deal with New York to move up the board and presumably snag a franchise signal caller.

At the unofficial start to mock draft season for fanbases like the Giants, who don't have much to talk about outside of entertaining early projections for what new talent their team might add to their roster in April, the majority of potential No. 1 trade scenarios have involved common teams like the Jets, Raiders or Browns who could all be mulling a quarterback move in the offseason.

However, it's taken a fresh mock draft by Pro Football Focus to stir things up a bit amid some intriguing developments across the league down the final stretch.

The outlet’s mock has a much different trade suitor calling up the Giants and making an agreement to shoot up to the top spot, while the Giants add some nice extra draft capital to their holster for 2026 and beyond.

Ohio State safety Caleb Downs — Ohio State Buckeyes defensive back Caleb Downs (2) celebrates after sacking Rutgers Scarlet Knights quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis (16) in the second half of the NCAA football game at Ohio Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025 in Columbus, Ohio. | Samantha Madar/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

That suitor is surprisingly the Miami Dolphins, who send over their No. 10 pick and 44 picks in this year’s draft, and their first- and second-round picks in the following year, to the Giants to draft Indiana quarterback prospect Fernando Mendoza.

Just a few weeks ago, the Dolphins were riding a hot wave. They appeared to have figured out their issues under center with Tua Tagovailoa, but that has quickly shifted as the team has benched their starting signal caller, which is sounding some alarms that their partnership may be reaching its end. Miami could be entering the market for a rookie gunslinger.

In the case of this mock, the Dolphins seemingly put all their chips on the table to outbid several other teams knocking on the Giants' door to win their slot. The Giants find themselves with four high-value picks in the next two drafts, with the former picks still able to improve in positioning over the final two weeks of the regular season.

With the No. 10 pick, the Giants take Ohio State safety Caleb Downs, who mock curator Gordon McGuinness mentioned as the top positional prospect with “PFF overall grades of 89.3 and 82.5 in coverage and run defense, respectively, this season."

No matter what suitor tries to pull off a deal, if the current order remains after Week 18, the Giants have to ensure the defensive secondary is on their short list of immediate needs. There aren’t many players in the class; it's better to add some quality depth than Downs.

In his second season with the Buckeyes, Downs is posting career-best numbers in coverage, including an 87.7 grade with 44 tackles, five pressures, two interceptions, and only 136 yards allowed against him in 12 games.

His size is a slight concern at 6-foot-0 and 205 pounds, but he has proven that he can overcome that deficit with sharp instincts and rallying to the football, which has improved his tackling and pass deflections in three years, and both of those elements have been issues for the Giants’ core.

General manager Joe Schoen wasn’t shy about targeting the position group last offseason by signing veterans Paulson Adebo and Jevon Holland in free agency and tapping Korie Black in the seventh round of the draft. Still, the desired impact of those moves just hasn’t been there.

Adebo, who was one of the league’s leaders in forced incompletions over the previous two seasons, has missed some important time with injuries that have tested the younger reinforcements on the depth chart.

His counterpart in Holland had some issues being impactful against the run. The Giants have huge questions in their reserves with Cor’Dale Flott, the team’s highest graded cornerback, headed into free agency. Deonte Banks, seemingly an old story in the Big Apple, as his stats have reached unimaginably low levels for a former first-round pick.

With a pass rush that hasn’t fully come together with preseason expectations and been more of a paper tiger to a porous secondary that seems to develop new holes every Sunday, one could argue it’s more important for the Giants to use their premier picks on fixing their defense, that was supposed to be their backbone with a rookie quarterback leading an unfinished offensive huddle.

As promising as Jaxson Dart and company have been at times, the Giants have lost a bunch of games this season due to a lack of complementary football, and the finger must be pointed at the defense, which has too much talent to be picked apart and run over in the trenches.

The Giants are still going to be pretty cap-strapped heading into the 2026 season with some expensive cap hits on that side of the ball from players like Dexter Lawrence and Brian Burns, meaning any necessary upgrades will need to be cheap and come partially from the draft’s talent pool.

If this mock could become reality and the Giants check the deep secondary off their list with one of the select first-round prospects in Downs, it would be a nice start.

Then they could potentially deploy that extra pick at No. 44 on finding a sneaky pass-catching option or offensive line depth to continue helping out Dart’s progression in his second year.

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