5 Giants UDFAs and Late-Round Sleepers Who Could Crash John Harbaugh’s 53-Man Roster

For most college prospects that wait until Day 3 of the NFL Draft or later to hear their names called by one of the 32 teams, the journey to making those respective rosters, let alone holding key roles on a team, is often an uphill climb that goes far beyond their rookie years.

The New York Giants’ group of late-round draft picks and their slew of undrafted free agent signings, however, could find themselves on a much more favorable path to the ultimate 53-man roster, which head coach John Harbaugh will lead in his first season as the main man in East Rutherford.

Once the Giants arrive in West Virginia in late July for their inaugural training camp under their new leader, there is expected to be a bevy of position battles that will take place, and in some areas, the focus is less on having enough depth than on choosing the best pieces to fill in major weaknesses from the previous season.

That means a number of roles from starting guys to depth chart holes will be up for grabs, including a few under-the-radar incomers who will have a strong shot to make the team if they can seriously impress Harbaugh and the coaching staff.

The Giants will continue working to round out their 90-man roster to give themselves the largest pool of competitors in late July, but only the best and most willing to sacrifice for the new culture will make the cut once New York trims to 53 men before kickoff in September.

It’s still a ways away from that juncture of the preseason, so there is plenty of room for prognostications on which late-round and UDFA’s will rise to the occasion. Here are a handful of them who could become permanent fixtures on the Giants' roster in a few months.

DT Bobby Jamison-Travis

New York Giants rookie defensive tackle Bobby Jamison-Travis — Auburn Tigers defensive lineman Bobby Jamison-Travis (97) runs drills during Auburn football pro day at Woltosz Performance Center in Auburn, Ala. on Tuesday, March 24, 2026. | Jake Crandall/ Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Giants’ interior defensive line has been a glaring concern as the franchise works to piece together a strong roster for the 2026 season. It only got worse once they traded their All-Pro gap stuffer in Dexter Lawrence to the Cincinnati Bengals for the No. 10 pick in the draft and left a massive hole at the nose of Dennard Wilson’s unit.

General manager Joe Schoen surprisingly chose not to address the position group until the sixth round, but eventually used the first of their three Day 3 turns to select Auburn defensive tackle Bobby Jamison-Travis to help heal up the depth in the trenches.

While most Giants fans probably scratched their heads at the thought of waiting until the final day of the draft to replace their former three-time Pro Bowler and team captain, that wasn’t the real intention with picking Jamison-Travis.

Nobody in this year’s class would truly replace Lawrence and the damage he has shown he can create when he is fully healthy and motivated.

Instead, the main issue amidst his down season and the time he missed in 2024 was the lack of power the Giants’ defensive line could send back at the opposing offense. Jamison-Travis displayed a ton of that during his time in Auburn and can bring it from multiple spots along the defensive front.

With Lawrence gone, the rest of the Giants’ interior is a small room of unproven players who are still looking to build an identity and grow together to slow down the run better than the league-worst average they posted in 2025.

Jamison-Travis could be a sneaky candidate to earn a key role on the defensive line even if the Giants add a veteran or two, such as D.J. Reader, to give more experience.

K Dominic Zvada

New York Giants UDFA kicker Dominic Zvada — Nov 15, 2025; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Michigan Wolverines kicker Dominic Zvada (96) celebrates his game winning field goal against the Northwestern Wildcats during the second half at Wrigley Field. | David Banks-Imagn Images

The Giants might have thought they finally found some future promise at the kicking position with Ben Sauls, who was able to calm down the carousel that saw four different legs attempt boots for the franchise last season and convert all 8 of his field goals and extra point tries.

John Harbaugh, a special teams enthusiast, seems to have different plans for that area of the third realm. The Giants still have Sauls, but added two more kickers, first veteran Jason Sanders in free agency, and then Michigan UDFA Dominic Zvada, one of the 2026 class’s best at the position.

If Sauls wants to retain his job, he is going to have to earn it, as he holds no prior connection and, thus, no privilege in Harbaugh’s mind.

At the same time, Sanders, who missed all of last season with a hip injury, could still be a little compromised to the point where a fall off could happen in camp with his long-range efficiency.

Zvada, a two-year player with the Wolverines, built one of the most efficient campaigns in that stretch of his college career. He went 21 of 22 on his field goal attempts last season, including a perfect 7-of-7 on kicks of 50+ yards.

The Giants have to get the kicker position right with Harbaugh at the helm, after it has been a disaster over the past couple of seasons, with Graham Gano's poor health and the poor showings from the various replacements the organization has tried to run out on Sundays.

Sanders, who is just 30 years old and converted over 90% of his field goal attempts twice in the previous three years, could still have some juice in his leg if he can stay healthy.

If Zvada comes in with a chip on his shoulder and outperforms both the veteran and Sauls in camp, the Giants could have their sixth different kicker since the start of the 2024 season lining them up.

LB Jack Kelly

Even with the Giants signing Tremaine Edmunds during free agency and drafting Arvell Reese with the No. 5 pick, the linebacker position still has a lot of sorting out to do in the coming months.

Given the financial investment the team put into Edmunds and their best draft asset for Reese, who Harbaugh has said expects to be a starter at the WILL linebacker spot, it almost feels set that those two will be the main options for New York come Week 1.

Who will stand watch and be the first reinforcements if need be? The Giants are also bringing back Micah McFadden and Darius Muasau, but the former is coming off an injury-halted 2025 season with a foot injury, and there is uncertainty on whether he’ll be back as the same ironman tackler in the middle of the defense.

If the Giants aren’t liking what they’re seeing in McFadden, who is entering the 2026 season on a one-year “prove it” deal, they could look to pass along some reps to their newest member of the group in Jack Kelly, the BYU product whom they took to finish off the sixth-round trio and the overall class.

Being a late-round selection likely means that Kelly is viewed as developmental and will have an uphill battle to become a reliable piece from day one.

The Giants clearly loved the BYU product’s upside as an off-ball linebacker who was serviceable in crashing the run and showed he can rush the passer with 12 sacks and 54 pressures in his last two seasons with the Cougars.

Kelly’s tackling efficiency could improve a little more for NFL standards, but perhaps he can work on that while being a special teams guy for the Giants, who need some new players to help improve that phase of the game for Harbaugh.

OT Ryan Schernecke

More than anything, John Harbaugh loves to instill a sense of power and nastiness in his football team and their efforts on Sundays. That expectation will certainly translate to the offensive line, which was already coming off a solid 2025 season with the third-best pass-blocking efficiency in the NFL.

Even in the rushing game, the offensive line’s ability to win their matchups off the snap and create holes for the ball carriers led to the Giants sitting in the top five in the major ground stats by the end of last season despite the loss of rookie Cam Skattebo, who was averaging 4.1 yards per carry, to an ankle injury at the midway point.

While the starting five is all but determined as long as Francis Mauigoa acclimates well to playing right guard in his pro debut, the Giants’ next priority is shaping out the depth behind all five lead blockers, including tackle, where the team needs injury insurance for Andrew Thomas.

They drafted JC Davis in the sixth round to help the cause, but a more intriguing move was the signing of undrafted Division II free agent Ryan Schernecke out of Kutztown.

Schernecke is a massive player at 6-foot-7 and 302 pounds with impressive length and lower-body strength that made it very difficult for opposing pass rushers to get by him to the quarterback.

The Kutztown stud played a huge role in the school’s offensive line, holding court with the best programs at that level of college football, allowing just 0.69 sacks per contest.

Along with his production last season, the Giants view Schernecke as a potential long-term player, as evidenced by his contract, which was slightly above the standard deal for an undrafted free agent and included some guaranteed money.

If Schernecke can come into camp and surprise the coaching staff with his size and power in the trenches, he could be a sleeper pick to make the back end of the roster, where he could fit in as a backup for either Andrew Thomas or Jermaine Eluemunor.

The door was opened for one under-the-radar player to jump up the tackle depth chart once it was made known that Francis Mauigoa would be working at guard after he was drafted No. 10 overall, and Schernecke just might offer enough on the base level to entice Big Blue to put him in the rotation.

CB Thaddeus Dixon

New York Giants UDFA cornerback Thaddeus Dixon — Jan 29, 2026; Mobile, AL, USA; National defensive back Thaddeus Dixon (1) of North Carolina practices during National Senior Bowl practice at Hancock Whitney Stadium. | Vasha Hunt-Imagn Images

Despite the Giants returning Paulson Adebo as their projected CB1 and signing Greg Newsome II to compete with rookie second-round pick Colton Hood for the other perimeter role, the secondary has still been an area of concern in terms of its depth.

More importantly, the Giants need ballhawks who can handle playing on an island and handling one-on-one matchups with the NFL’s best pass catchers. They have some incumbents waiting to rise up the ranks, but there is an extra competitor in Thaddeus Dixon who could earn his chance.

Dixon, whom the Giants just picked as an undrafted free agent in their early moves, has a ton of experience playing an outside cornerback taking on press-man assignments. He has solid length and ball instincts to ride along a receiver’s routes and be disruptive with forced turnovers.

No matter where he played in his three collegiate stops that ended with North Carolina in 2025, Dixon had all the intangibles to be an explosive player off the snap and hang with both taller and speedy targets alike, the same ones that often tormented the Giants' unit last season.

In three years, Dixon, who has 1,357 defensive snaps and 761 coverage snaps under his belt, has only missed 12 of 67 total tackles while allowing as low as 46.9% of throws against him to get converted into a catch.

He also has logged 19 pass deflections and allowed only three touchdowns under his watch. Dixon does a solid job of avoiding penalties as well, another common issue for the Giants' cornerbacks, who are trying to make up for being beaten on route breaks and vertical threats.

To top it all off, he can offer the Giants positional versatility by covering the opponents’ best perimeter threat by himself on the outside or stepping inside to try to slow down the speedier receivers from having home run moments.

The one concern has been injuries, including the hamstring ailment that affected his performance at the combine, but he still showed some athleticism and grit to make a case for the roster and be trusted to strengthen the Giants’ man coverage effort.

He is the type of cornerback that the Giants finally found with Cor’Dale Flott, but sadly, it came on a contract year that earned Flott a big payday in Tennessee. There are also doubts about how much of a leash Deonte Banks will be given after how far he has regressed in coverage since he was drafted in the first round in 2023.

Beyond Hood, Newsome, and Banks, the next potential competitor might just be Dixon, who can only go upward with a strong performance at training camp this summer, and the Giants will need multiples of that to provide the pass rush with better timing to get after the quarterback.

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