Will Russell Wilson and the Giants have things to celebrate this season?
The New York Giants are about to embark upon an interesting, entirely unpredictable 2025 season that could have profound implications for the long-term direction of a franchise that floundered since winning the 2011 Super Bowl.
Are the Giants a playoff team? Are they once again going to be a 3-14 team? Most likely, they will be something in-between those two extremes.
What will constitute success or failure? You probably have your own definitions of those things.
The Giants are better, maybe much better, on paper. They have an upgraded quarterback room with two veterans and a promising first-round pick. They have an upgraded defense that, if it plays to its potential, could be a top 10 unit. They have an exciting group of young players, mixed with some veteran leadership. They appear to have better depth in many spots than they have had in a while.
They also have a fourth-year GM/head coach combo under intense pressure to produce results after nearly losing their jobs due to going 9-25 over the 2023 and 2024 seasons.
What will it all add up to? Nobody knows. Until the games are played. Stay tuned as we all find out together.
What are the factors that will go into determining whether the Giants are successful this season or not? Reader Bob Donnelly sent a question to the Big Blue View Mailbag (which you can do by e-mailing
[email protected]) recently asking me to list those factors. Bob wrote:
Be it finally playing to their draft position / contract, rebounding from or avoiding injury, or making a developmental leap much has been discussed about what is hoped for in the upcoming season.
In your view, what are the seven most important things – in order of importance – that the Giants need to come to fruition so that the team can realize its potential?
Well, Bob, I am a severe disappointment. As I turned this over and over in my mind I could only come up with six main categories or factors, each with a variety of tentacles sprouting inside them.
Let’s get to them.
Quarterback play
The Giants have had one of the worst offenses in football for the past two seasons, 31st in points scored last season and 30th in 2023.
When Drew Lock threw for 309 yards and four touchdowns in a 45-33 Week 17 victory over the Indianapolis Colts, head coach Brian Daboll — renowned for his work as an offensive play caller before coming to the Giants — made his feelings on the primary reason the Giants were not a good offensive team crystal clear.
“That’s how the quarterback needs to perform,” Daboll said.
It is significant that the only major change the Giants made on offense this offseason was to revamp their quarterback room. Daboll and GM Joe Schoen are pushing their offensive chips to the middle of the table and making it obvious they believe the problem was Daniel Jones, and to a lesser extent the backups who replaced him over the past two seasons.
“It’s the most important position in football,” Schoen said of quarterback while in Indianapolis at the NFL Combine. “I do think the quarterback can elevate the roster.”
Jones, for all his hard work, could not. The Giants are counting on the belief that Russell Wilson, Jaxson Dart and Jameis Winston — to whatever extent each gets utilized in 2025 — can.
Wilson, at 37, isn’t the quarterback he used to be and may not be the starter for the duration of the season with Dart nipping at his heels. By almost any statistical metric, though, he has been better than Jones the past two seasons.
Wilson, still a premier deep-ball thrower, brings big-play ability. All three of the Giants’ quarterbacks are capable, and willing to throw the ball down the field. That is a major change for a Giants’ offense that has not created enough big plays.
Wilson has also brought leadership and, with a Super Bowl title and 10 Pro Bowl appearances on his resume, the cachet to help teammates learn what it takes to succeed.
“He’s [Wilson] an amazing, amazing person, amazing father. His family is amazing. He has the right people around him that keep him going,” said second-year wide receiver Malik Nabers. “He has a good process around him so if I can take anything, any lessons from him, just look at all the things he’s accomplished and doing those right things, I think it’s growing on me. I hope it grows on me just to do the right things.”
Veteran receiver Darius Slayton said the message from Wilson is “always encouragement” and that he is a “very positive person.”
Considering where the Giants have been in recent seasons, that positivity is a good thing to be around.
So, too, is it a good thing for the Giants — maybe the best thing — that Dart has looked like the real deal throughout the spring and summer.
Whenever Dart becomes the starting quarterback, he has provided the organization with optimism that they were right about trading up with the Houston Texans to select him No. 25 in the draft.
As for when Dart will play, the Giants have consistently said that Wilson is QB1 and are not committing to anything.
“The timeline will be the timeline however it works out,” Schoen said.
Winston, a former No. 1 overall pick who has become a journeyman, can be overlooked with Wilson as the starter and Dart as the future. Watch practices and listen to teammates talk about him, though, and you realize Winston is more than just a funny guy. He is that, but he is also a player who holds his teammates accountable and is a good influence on Dart.
All of that aside, the most important thing in the short term is wins and losses. The Giants went 1-8 in one-score games a season ago, and a look back shows that fourth-quarter quarterback play was a major difference in many of those games.
The Giants are betting their revamped quarterback room puts them in better position to win some of those games.
It’s a bet Schoen and Daboll need to win.
Health of key players
On paper, the Giants have the most talented, deepest roster in Joe Schoen’s four years as general manager.
“I like the team, I like the chemistry, I like the leadership,” Schoen said recently. “We had a good training camp, we had a good spring, now we’re two weeks away and we have to go out and do it. Do I like the team? Yes. I like the chemistry, I feel like we’ve been executing, we’ve had good practice, the guys have done a good job through camp. It’s been really good competition and now it’s time to go out and do it.”
Better roster or not, some players are obviously more important than others. It will help the Giants “go out and do it” if the team’s best, most important players can stay on the field.
The Giants, somehow, always seem to be a team that suffers an alarming number of injuries, perennially among the leaders in games lost to injuries.
That has to change some time. Doesn’t it?
The biggest health question entering the season revolves around left tackle Andrew Thomas, the team’s best offensive lineman. His recovery from Lisfranc surgery has been painstakingly slow, and his medical issues this offseason were
deeper than had been previously reported. The more healthy games the Giants get from Thomas the better chance they have of getting quality play from their offensive line.
Malik Nabers has dealt with toe, shoulder and back issues this offseason. Nabers said recently that despite all of that “When it’s game time with those lights on, I believe my body is going to turn it on.”
The Giants desperately need a healthy Nabers. Darius Slayton is a nice player and deserving team captain, but not a game-changing No. 1 wide receiver. Not close.
Graham Gano, the Giants’ 38-year-old placekicker, has missed 16 games over the past two seasons with leg injuries. The Giants have struggled to achieve consistent placekicking when Gano has been sidelined, and even when he was on the field his injuries caused him to be more inconsistent than usual.
Dexter Lawrence is, of course, irreplaceable.
Brian Burns, Paulson Adebo, Jevon Holland, Tyler Nubin, Abdul Carter, Theo Johnson and maybe even Slayton, are among players the Giants would have a difficult time replacing.
I am sure there are others. Feel free to drop names of players you think should be on this list into the comments.
The defense matching the hype
The hype train regarding the potential of the Giants’ defense, especially the front seven, has been hurtling at warp speed since the Giants made former Penn State edge defender Abdul Carter the third overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.
Bucky Brooks of
NFL.com ranked the Giants’ front seven as the best in the league.
Sharp Football Analysis ranks the group No. 4.
Pro Football Focus ranks the front seven No. 3.
Even second-year backup linebacker Darius Muasau is buying into the hype, saying during training camp that “I’d say we got the best D-line in the NFL right now.”
You get the idea. And, you knew this already. The group headlined by Dexter Lawrence, Brian Burns, Kayvon Thibodeaux and Carter is expected to
DOMINATE.
This group, including linebackers Bobby Okereke and Micah McFadden, as well as defensive linemen Roy Robertson-Harris and Darius Alexander as primary players, cannot disappoint.
After being 31st in the NFL in scoring a season ago, the Giants’ offense can’t be expected to suddenly become a juggernaut. Hopefully, it becomes league average.
After co-owner John Mara expressed disappointment with the defense in January by saying “I’m tired of watching teams go up and down the field on us” Schoen poured a lot of offseason resources into changing that.
Carter and Alexander were drafted. Adebo, Holland, Robertson-Harris and Chauncey Golston were signed in free agency. Secondary coaches Jerome Henderson and Mike Trieir were replaced by Marquand Manuel and Jeff Burris.
It is the defense that is going to have to carry this team against a difficult schedule, keeping the Giants competitive, making game-changing plays, setting up the offense to make big plays and be opportunistic.
If it can’t, the Giants won’t be winning very many games.
The offensive line being at least adequate
Before Thomas suffered his Lisfranc injury last season, beginning a never-ending whirlwind of injuries and inadequate performance that left the Giants shuffling, and shuffling, and shuffling the line some more in search of answers that never really came, the Giants’ offensive line was fine.
It wasn’t great, but it was fine. Thomas, Jon Runyan, John Michael Schmitz and Jermaine Eluemunor from left tackle across to right tackle were basically a league-average line.
The Giants would absolutely take league average play from that group.
The key, of course, will be Thomas’s health. If he can play the vast majority of the games, and play at a level close to his 2022 second-team All-Pro form, that would be a huge help. If he can’t, the free-agent signing of swing tackle James Hudson and the drafting of impressive rookie Marcus Mbow seem to have the Giants better positioned to withstand whatever time he is sidelined.
Runyan has played next to Hudson all spring and summer.
“I think bringing him in here was really important. He’s done a really good job. He has the versatility. When he was in Cleveland, he played left and right tackle, and he (brought) that here. He brings a different mindset,” Runyan said. “A good edge, physical player. Extremely twitchy as well. Fun playing (with) him. I played with him in college as well for a couple of years. Getting back to that with him, it’s just cool. Those moments when you grew up playing with someone, whether that was in high school or college. Now you guys are both living out your dream together and you share that together. It’s been really awesome playing next to him and feeling that connection we have. He’s been great. He’s been that kind of tone checker for us at tackle and he’s doing well.”
Runyan himself is healthy after playing all of 2024 with a separated shoulder, and needing tight rope surgery for a late-season ankle injury.
There are questions about Schmitz, but he did show improvement in 2024. Can he continue that in his third season?
Van Roten is a 35-year-old placeholder who will play until or unless Evan Neal takes his job. Eluemunor had an excellent season at right tackle in 2024, and Mbow or Hudson could step in there if necessary.
“We really want to be the heartbeat of this team and this offensive unit, both sides of the ball – offensive and defensive line,” Runyan said. “I think we’re one of the most veteran positions on this team. We’ve got a lot of great players, and I just feel like this offensive line unit has the chance of being one of the best in the league. I feel like we’ve been proving that to ourselves each day in training camp. We’re all really excited to get going coming up against Washington.”
Bono or Bozo?
Brian Daboll won Coach of the Year honors in 2022. He earned that by cajoling the best year of his career out of quarterback Daniel Jones. He earned that by coaching a rag-tag team that had won four games in 2021, gotten Joe Judge and Dave Gettleman replaced, and had GM Joe Schoen looking for scraps of Duct tape anywhere he could uncover them to splice together a functional roster with no cap space and a front office filled with people he barely knew.
Co-owner John Mara proved prescient by saying after that award was bestowed upon Daboll that the coach needed to be careful not to go from Bono, the rock star, to Bozo, the clown.
Well, the Giants have gone 9-25 over the past two seasons.
Jones turned back into a pumpkin. Daboll’s magic touch disappeared. There were constant rumors of behind the scenes unhappiness among the coaching staff, which seemed to be borne out by the ugly dismissal of defensive coordinator Wink Martindale.
There were embarrassing blowout losses to start both the 2023 and 2024 seasons. There were some questionable roster and game day decisions that blew up on Daboll and the Giants. There was Daboll stripping offensive coordinator Mike Kafka, a sought-after offensive mind, of play-calling and then watching the Giants end up 31st in the 32-team NFL in points per game.
Not much went right the last two seasons.
Daboll went from a cigar-smoking hero of Giants fans to a cigar-smoking hack. Some fans were so distraught they were paying for planes to fly above MetLife Stadium begging John Mara to make changes.
Brian Daboll. Smoking cigars. Wearing jays. Winning games.
pic.twitter.com/PwOvdup850
— Giants Daily (@NYGDaily)
October 24, 2022
Bono to Bozo.
Can Daboll recapture the magic?
Jones is gone. There is a revamped quarterback room with good veterans and an exciting rookie. That has seemed to energize Daboll, and has finally given him a real chance to prove that his reputation for molding quarterbacks is deserved.
There is a roster that after four years now completely belongs to Daboll and Schoen. Daboll seems to love players with big personalities, players with ‘DAWG’ in them, and he has a lot of them. There is a coaching staff that has been remodeled over the past couple of offseasons. Kafka is again calling plays, leaving Daboll to focus on Dart and to be more easily involved in all aspects of the team.
Maybe, just maybe, that will lead to the return of Daboll the rock star. If Bozo rears his goofy head, he could get bounced.
A little luck
It is impossible to deny that the Giants caught some breaks in 2022. Their formula was largely play mistake-free football, keep the game close, let the other team implode at the end, capitalize, win.
In Week 1 against the Tennessee Titans, Saquon Barkley went super-human to score a game-winning 2-point conversion and then Randy Bullock missed what would have been a game-winning 47-yard field goal on the final play.
Against the Baltimore Ravens, a team the Giants had no business beating, Lamar Jackson somehow imploded in the final three minutes, turning the ball over twice and gifting the Giants a victory.
They managed to beat the Commanders in Week 15, in no small part with some help from a no-call on what likely should have been defensive pass interference in the end zone on Darnay Holmes on a fourth-down play in the final minute.
The Giants are going to need some similar good fortune in 2025.
They have already gotten some, with the Dallas Cowboys trading away star defender Micah Parsons, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Giants Week 3 opponent, having wide receiver Rashee Rice suspended for the first six games, and the Washington Commanders being without starting right guard Sam Cosmi in Week 1.
The Giants will need some good bounces and will need to capitalize when some good team inevitably have off days.
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