{"id":628195,"date":"2026-04-24T16:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T16:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/628195\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T16:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T16:22:08","slug":"giants-nfl-draft-2026-why-did-new-york-select-arvell-reese-francis-mauigoa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/628195\/","title":{"rendered":"Giants NFL Draft 2026: Why did New York select Arvell Reese, Francis Mauigoa?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Giants<\/a> did not enter Round 1 of the 2026 NFL Draft on Thursday night expecting to come away with linebacker Arvell Reese and offensive linemen Francis Mauigoa. Even after GM Joe Schoen ran a \u201czillion\u201d scenarios, according to head coach John Harbaugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cReality is stranger than fiction,\u201d Harbaugh said.<\/p>\n

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So, why did the Giants<\/a> pick those two players. They certainly had other choices. Just ask Malik Nabers<\/a>. Let\u2019s let Schoen and Harbaugh tell us why.<\/p>\n

Arvell Reese (No. 5)<\/p>\n

The Giants could have taken safety Caleb Downs<\/a> here, and no one would have been shocked. They could have taken wide receiver Jordyn Tyson. They could have taken Sonny Styles<\/a>. They could have taken Mauigoa. They could have traded down.<\/p>\n

Why Reese?<\/p>\n

\u201cArvell is a versatile player, and we\u2019re going to play him at inside backer, WILL linebacker. Our defense is pretty flexible, position-less you might call it. We\u2019ll have an opportunity to move those guys around,\u201d Harbaugh said. \u201cBut he\u2019ll line up next to Tremaine (Edmunds), and he\u2019ll be in the A gap, the B gap, the C gap, the D gap, off the edge. He\u2019ll be moving around with all of our guys. Abdul (Carter) and Brian (Burns) and Kayvon (Thibodeaux) and Tremaine.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ll be running games and picks and stunts and different things like that on passing situations, and he\u2019s good in coverage as well, he\u2019s a versatile player. He\u2019s a young player. He\u2019s gotten better every single year, playing off the ball and on the ball, so he does both. Probably why he was our highest rated non- quarterback player in the draft. He\u2019s an exciting player.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s just a puppy.<\/p>\n

Reese does not turn 21 until August. Schoen said his pass rush upside is \u201ctremendous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just scratching the surface. You see the size, the length, the traits. And again, like Coach was talking about, just the versatility that the player has and how we can use him with some of the pieces that we already have,\u201d Schoen said. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to necessarily have to ask him to win off the edge, we\u2019ve got guys that can do that. So we have a phenomenal defensive staff and they\u2019re going to find creative ways to use him.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Harbaugh added that \u201cit\u2019s all upside\u201d for Reese.<\/p>\n

More draft coverageFrancis Mauigoa (No. 10)<\/p>\n

The Giants again had the option of selecting Downs, or trading down. They chose to add to an offensive line that, while good enough in 2025, has been a problem more often than not for most of the last 15 years.<\/p>\n

Why Mauigoa?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe stuck with the board,\u201d said Schoen. \u201cAnd Sisi\u2019s another 20-year-old, believe it or not, he\u2019ll be 21 in June, so we got two young players that we\u2019re fired up about. But a powerful young man with tremendous athleticism and size. And I don\u2019t know if you guys saws saw his interview there on TV, they asked him what he should tell Jaxson. And that was, that\u2019s the type of kid he is.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo again, to get those two young men that have size and athleticism and the makeup that we desire, and the fact that we know that we\u2019re going to have those guys under contract for five years, to add to some of the young foundational pieces that we already have, I mean it\u2019s really exciting, really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

He will play guard.<\/p>\n

The Giants won\u2019t ask veteran right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor<\/a> to move inside. Mauigoa will start his career in between Eluemunor and center John Michael Schmitz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to put him inside at guard. He can certainly play tackle,\u201d Harbaugh said. \u201cSometimes we call these schools and get the film, and they have two really good rushers down there in Miami<\/a> in (Ahkeem) Mesidor and (Rueben) Bain, and to watch the practice film \u2014 he\u2019s going against NFL dudes on a daily basis, and doing a really good job, it was pretty impressive. He can certainly always bump back out to tackle at any point. We\u2019re going to start him at guard.\u201d<\/p>\n

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What about Mauigoa\u2019s back?<\/p>\n

Mauigoa had a recheck on his back shortly before the draft, and some analysts expressed long-term concern. Schoen said \u201cHe\u2019s fine. He\u2019s good right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Giants are not that concerned because they now have Adam Bennett, the trainer at Miami while Mauigoa played there, on their staff. So, they have the most personal information on Mauigoa possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re comfortable with it,\u201d Schoen said. \u201cWe\u2019re fortunate that the (Adam Bennett) former trainer from the University of Miami<\/a> is now one of our trainers. So we have somebody that\u2019s been with him for his entire time at Miami, and lived with him through the process. It was an injury that occurred in the Texas A&M game, and we were certainly comfortable with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Check out our\u00a0New York Giants Draft Hub Page<\/a>\u00a0for all the Giants draft news, rumors, analysis, mock drafts, prospect profiles, and much more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Giants did not enter Round 1 of the 2026 NFL Draft on Thursday night expecting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[133474,64,63,133465,133442,5126,148070,10286,142536,22811,5371,5140,1242,593,133467,85,48148,304506],"class_list":{"0":"post-628195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-arvell-reese","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-caleb-downs","12":"tag-francis-mauigoa","13":"tag-giants","14":"tag-jermaine-eluemunor","15":"tag-joe-schoen","16":"tag-john-harbaugh","17":"tag-john-michael-schmitz","18":"tag-malik-nabers","19":"tag-miami","20":"tag-new-york-giants","21":"tag-nfl","22":"tag-sonny-styles","23":"tag-sports","24":"tag-the-giants","25":"tag-versatile-player"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}