The New York Giants’ season has, once again, spiraled out of control. The team is, once again, barreling toward a top-five draft pick in April’s 2026 NFL Draft. However, this time around, the G-Men won’t be in the market for a quarterback.
In each of the last two drafts, the Giants were seeking out a quarterback, attempting to trade up in an effort to land that franchise guy. But this time around, they could be on the selling end, rather than the buying end.
The Giants are likely picking top-10 again
According to Tankathon, the Giants currently own the No. 2 overall pick in April’s draft.
That is, of course, subject to change over the course of the final six weeks of the regular season. However, at 2-9, there isn’t much left for the Giants to play for, and the odds are that they will finish with a top-10 pick, if not a top-five pick.
Giants could trade down with a quarterback-needy team
If the Giants do find themselves picking top-five, though, they will be faced with an interesting decision: pick the best non-quarterback on the board, or trade down with a quarterback-needy team?
Every year, even in “weaker” quarterback classes, the lack of supply and the heightened demand lead to teams becoming eager to trade up for the class’s top signal-callers. The Giants, confident that they have already found their next franchise quarterback in Jaxson Dart, could be in a perfect position to trade down with one of those quarterback-needy teams.
Granted, the Giants’ roster is far from complete, so maybe they could stick-and-pick, taking the top talent on the board to continue building around Dart and the roster’s young nucleus of talent.
But knowing the Giants don’t have a third-round pick in this year’s draft (traded away in the move to grab Dart in the 2025 draft), any opportunity that allows them to move back and gain more draft capital could be enticing.
Plus, the Ginats’ top needs (wide receiver, cornerback) are positions that could be addressed in the middle of the first round. They don’t necessarily require top-10 picks to be addressed.
The Giants might prefer to take the extra draft picks and build out the rest of their roster, addressing several needs with a more long-term approach.
What could the Giants get in a potential trade-back scenario?
In the history of the NFL Draft, teams have traded up in the first round to draft a quarterback 32 times. It has happened at least once in each of the last three drafts and at least once in four of the last five.
Two of those recent trades saw the trading-down team inherit additional first-round draft capital (the Bears in 2023 and the Dolphins in 2021).
Seven of the 32 first-round quarterback trade-ups have included additional first-round draft capital in the package. That’s 21.8% of the total trades.
A deal where the Giants move back outside of the top-10 could potentially yield them an additional first-round pick — that would be tremendously valuable for this young, retooling team.
Rather than just taking the best wide receiver on the board, for example, the Giants could move back a handful of spots, take the next-best playmaker, and hold onto an extra haul of draft capital to address the rest of their needs.
For a team that believes it is one good head coach away from becoming a competitive team with a “strong young nucleus of talent,” a trade-down could be the right move.
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