This is Joe Schoen’s fourth NFL Draft as Giants GM. And it could be his last if he doesn’t get it right.
Those are the stakes for a regime that failed so badly last season, they made the skies over MetLife Stadium look like the runway at Teterboro.
That is the pressure and desperation that guides Schoen and Brian Daboll Thursday with aims to possibly select two players in the first round, including a position player at No. 3 overall and their next franchise quarterback in a trade up from the top of Round 2.
Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart, as the Daily News first reported on April 12, has emerged as the Giants’ most likely QB target if they can get to the popular prospect who also has suitors such as the Saints, Browns and Rams on his tail.
NFL sources believe Schoen preferred Shedeur Sanders throughout the process but told the News in March that Daboll had warmed to Dart.
That creates a fascinating dynamic because as the News has previously reported, sources say Schoen and Daboll more than ever have been functioning as separate entities rather than the collaborative pair they were hired to be.
That’s the friction caused by a 3-14 third season after which, sources say, there were people in the Giants’ personnel department who wouldn’t have minded starting over fresh with a new coaching staff.
Co-owner John Mara’s Black Monday press conference also put the bulk of the blame on Daboll while praising Schoen’s process despite acknowledging unacceptable results. Then Mara didn’t speak at all the NFL Owners Meetings, which also spoke loudly.
Maybe that means Schoen is protected even into a fifth season, regardless of the team’s 2025 results, with Mara moving the goalposts so arbitrarily to reflect a complete absence of a defined standard for his organization.
Maybe Mara, the Tisch family and the new minority owners will just ride this regime out through its fifth season regardless to run out the clock on their contracts and avoid constantly paying multiple regimes at once — just like Cowboys owner Jerry Jones did with Mike McCarthy to save a few bucks.
Despite the acrimony, however, Schoen and Daboll now are required to work through this tense environment and make a decision that will impact this franchise long into its future, for better or worse.
They are believed to be in line to select Penn State edge rusher Abdul Carter at No. 3 overall, unless the Cleveland Browns unexpectedly pass on Colorado receiver/corner Travis Hunter at No. 2.
Reinforcing the offensive and defensive lines theoretically should be the Giants’ goal at that No. 3 overall pick. Carter would help with that, although he plays on the edge, not on the interior, where the Giants desperately need reinforcements on both sides of the ball.
Think of it this way: the Giants needed to draft a quarterback, an offensive lineman and a defensive tackle last spring in 2024, and they didn’t select any of the three. So they must address those deficiencies, and many believe they’ll also select a running back at this year’s deepest draft class position.
The quarterback decision is the big one, though. That is the legacy pick, the one that will ultimately define Schoen’s impact in New York, if picking Kayvon Thibodeaux and Evan Neal at Nos. 5 and 7 in his first class hasn’t done so already.
Schoen has been adamant that he does not intend to force a quarterback above his value on the board, but the GM is clearly feeling pressure to take one — both because the Giants need one and because he might not have another chance to do so.
Last year’s draft was an example of Schoen sticking to his principle on that point: he decided that Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye were worth the No. 6 overall pick or a trade up in the first round but that Michael Penix Jr., J.J. McCarthy and Bo Nix were not — even though all six were selected in the top 12.
He tried hard to trade up to No. 3 with the Patriots for Maye, but New England wouldn’t budge. He shutdown and released Daniel Jones two years into a four-year, $160 million contract.
Then he swung big for Matthew Stafford in a trade this spring, only for the Rams quarterback to conclude a month-long flirtation with the decision to remain in L.A. on a reworked contract.
Schoen settled for signing Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston after missing on Stafford, Aaron Rodgers, Joe Flacco and an attempt to trade up to No. 1 for Miami’s Cam Ward, who will be selected by the Tennessee Titans with Thursday night’s top pick.
Now, the Giants GM knows he needs to land a promising rookie. The question is where he’ll maneuver and whose guy he’ll take.
Schoen is the GM and the final decision-maker, in his own words. If he believes in Sanders, in the face of internal disagreement with Daboll and others, he could show conviction and take him.
That would be the headline of the NFL Draft.
It will be almost as interesting, though, if the Giants do not take Sanders. And it seems like that’s how it’s going to go.
Dart is viewed by several league sources as the Giants’ preferred target, the best combination of physical traits, coachability, leadership and fit within Daboll’s offense.
The problem is that the Saints (No. 9), Steelers (No. 21), Rams (No. 26) and Browns (No. 33) all lurk ahead of the Giants as strong possibilities for Dart landing spots.
So a trade up would either be expensive or an impossibility, depending on the scenario.
It’s believed that is one reason why the Giants doubled back with such detailed work on Sanders, Alabama’s Jalen Milroe and Louisville’s Tyler Shough.
They need to be prepared if Dart isn’t available to them or they can’t get there. Don’t rule out Milroe in that scenario, since coaches and scouts view his running ability and speed as the only true elite trait of that next tier of QBs.
Although the Giants haven’t been tied as strongly to Texas’ Quinn Ewers, he is considered by many evaluators to be the best all-around prospect of the second tier, too. So don’t sleep on his name.
Meanwhile, on top of all that quarterback jockeying, Schoen and Daboll also need to significantly improve their subpar roster in order to prevent the bottom falling out on their team for a second straight season in 2025.
Look at it this way: a 3-14 record in Year 3 should have gotten them fired. They received a reprieve from an organization that has lost its compass and built an NFL worst record (40-91, .305) over the past eight seasons from 2017-2024.
So in some ways, Schoen and Daboll are playing with house money.
If they get this draft wrong, however, they will lose it all.
