The Giants could have gone a few directions with their two top-10 picks, the second of which was added days before the draft in a Dexter Lawrence II trade with the Bengals. I thought that was a really good trade for general manager Joe Schoen, and it set John Harbaugh\u2019s Giants up to do some work early in Round 1. The best case in my eyes would have been Jeremiyah Love at No. 5 and Jordyn Tyson at No. 10. Unfortunately, neither player was still on the board at the respective picks.<\/p>\n
Plan B was landing Reese with the first selection. This is my No. 3 overall prospect and top guy on the defensive side of the ball. I get the confusion considering the Giants just used the third pick on Abdul Carter a year ago and also have Brian Burns and Kayvon Thibodeaux. Edge rusher isn\u2019t a need. But as a team that is 7-27 over the past two years and has a defense that allowed a league-worst 5.3 yards per rush in 2025, the Giants needed good football players. Reese is a really good one. \u2026 I have no problem with taking an elite player and figuring out the perfect way to use him later.<\/p>\n
Mauigoa at No. 10 also makes sense, as protecting Jaxson Dart and opening some rushing lanes for Cam Skattebo off a leg injury will be key. \u2026 The one issue I have with this pick is Caleb Downs was still available. Harbaugh had Kyle Hamilton in Baltimore, and he could have had Downs in New York. If we\u2019re talking about \u201cbest player available,\u201d there\u2019s a strong case for my No. 6 prospect at No. 10. But overall, this was a great first round for the Giants.<\/p>\n
New York hit more needs on Day 2. It would have surprised no one if Colton Hood was a first-round pick. He\u2019s a long, athletic corner. His Senior Bowl week could have been better, but he\u2019s physical at 193 pounds. He didn\u2019t pile up interceptions (three over 29 games), but he doesn\u2019t allow completions, either. And Malachi Fields fits as a potential WR2 behind Malik Nabers. He\u2019s a walking highlight reel on downfield catches. Fields shields defenders from the ball with his length and physicality, and he has terrific hands, with just two drops over the past two seasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Giants could have gone a few directions with their two top-10 picks, the second of which was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,23065,11,10],"class_list":["post-210350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-giants-draft","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}