Giants Go for 1-2 Punch on Offense in New 2025 Re-draft Exercise

The Giants play no games in securing their franchise quarterback before addressing the defense later on in a new re-draft exercise.

Apr 23, 2025; Green Bay, WI, USA; A general overall view of the 2025 NFL Draft logo on the Draft stage at Lambeau Field. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

The New York Giants are a franchise that hasn’t had the best of fortunes in assembling solid draft classes over the past several seasons under general manager Joe Schoen’s direction. 

In 2025, however, the Giants' executive was deserving of some flowers for finally making a few good hits that have set the team up with quality young talent for the future at important positions across the roster. 

Even with those successes on the draft board, there also turned out to be some more misses that could have gone in a different direction in hindsight.

Perhaps the Giants could have adjusted where they attacked certain needs on the clock and changed the outcome of what was another humiliating 4-13 season for New York that brought about more change at the top. 

That is where experimenting with a re-draft makes for an entertaining early offseason exercise for teams that fell short of expectations, and ESPN just released its own version in a re-draft of the first two rounds of the 2025 selection process. 

Of course, the Giants fanbase shouldn’t have many bad things to say about how this year’s early picks fared, but the outcome could have been a lot simpler on draft night based on what the players involved accomplished on the gridiron this season.

More specifically, the Giants wouldn’t have had to sweat out making a bold swing for their most important selection in recent history. 

As ESPN’s re-draft shows, they operate under that logic as they easily snag their franchise quarterback in unison with the top names in the class.

The Giants Waste No Time Grabbing Their Desired Quarterback

Dec 21, 2025; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart (6) practices before the game at MetLife Stadium. | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

As the story went back in April, the Giants made two momentous picks in the first round of the 2025 draft. The first saw them land arguably the best available prospect, Abdul Carter, at No. 3 to supplement their talented pass rush, before making a deal with the Los Angeles Rams to trade up to No. 25 and take quarterback Jaxson Dart as their future answer at the helm. 

The shakeup might not have seemed like the biggest one, as Dart wasn’t the top prospect in the quarterback position, a distinction that went to Cam Ward, who still went No. 1 to Tennessee in ESPN’s do-over. 

For the Giants, the Ole Miss product had an inherent promise that enticed former head coach Brian Daboll to convince Schoen to make the bold move that brought him to East Rutherford. 

Dart certainly wouldn’t disappoint his earliest believer in Daboll nor the rest of the Giants organization after they parted ways with his mentor in the middle of the season.

He led all rookies in total touchdowns (24) and produced 2,272 passing yards while flashing grittiness as a dual-threat gunslinger in the open field.

Ward and Tyler Shough also had pretty impressive debuts despite playing for equally disappointing locker rooms. Still, with both of them off the board in the first two picks, Schoen gives a nod to his former colleagues' intuition and steals Dart at the third pick of the re-draft before he can fall any further. 

With the three signal callers spoken for in short order, the rest of the top 10 picks saw a scramble from the original choices, including Carter, who no longer was in the Giants’ grasp after they kept their No. 34 in the second round and remained a surefire selection in that same range. 

Instead, Carter slid four spots further than his original fate, albeit still coming to the opposite side of the New York market with the Jets, who landed him at No. 7 to bolster their 31st-ranked pass rush with a player who led the league in pressures among rookies at the end of the 2025 season. 

Switching their priorities wasn’t going to erase the Giants' desire to continue adding quality depth to their own defensive front, which they wanted to be a key to their success, though. 

For a player of Dart’s caliber, they were okay shifting to the second round to fill that need.

What happened to the Giants' pass rush?

Oct 12, 2025; Charlotte, North Carolina, USA; Dallas Cowboys defensive end Donovan Ezeiruaku (41) warms up before the game against the Carolina Panthers at Bank of America Stadium. | Scott Kinser-Imagn Images

Luckily for the Giants, this year’s draft class was deep enough at the defensive end position that waiting until the second round in this re-draft didn’t cost them a chance at a quality addition to their unit. 

With the 34th pick that they originally traded to the Houston Texans to jump up nine spots to secure Dart, the Giants fortified their pass rush by choosing Boston College defensive end Donovan Ezeiruaku, whose rookie campaign for the Dallas Cowboys wasn’t too far behind the accomplishments of Carter. 

Ezeiruaku, who was originally the 44th overall pick, jumped ten spots and became the fifth edge prospect taken off the re-draft board. He got to remain in the NFC East division, where his talents would still be enough to give New York a top-three worthy defensive presence in his first year.

The re-draft made it known that this new selection was still under the mindset of the next best available player for New York to upgrade their roster in a premium area.

The only better prospect than what they got was James Pearce Jr, who graded second among rookies but still went 11 picks before his real pick status to Atlanta.

As the 2026 draft looms in a couple of months, it wouldn’t be a total surprise to see the Giants add another quality player to their defensive front, which was weak in the trenches, and might have one of two veterans departed from the building in the near future. 

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