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[New York Giants]

Can Dalen Cambre be the next great special teams-first NFL player?

Dalen Cambre (11) celebrates a field goal. | Andrew Wevers-Imagn Images

Cambre is listed as a wide receiver, but the undrafted rookie is on the roster for a different reason

Dalen Cambre is probably the biggest underdog on the New York Giants’ 90-man roster.

Cambre is a 6-foot, 192-pound undrafted free agent who caught 10 passes in a five-year collegiate career with the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns.

How did Cambre land a chance with an NFL team with stats like that?

Well, it’s because he is a tremendous special teams player, having earned first-team All-America honors from Pro Football Focus and second-team from College Football Network.

Cambre had nine special teams tackles in 2024 and was the team’s holder for placekicks. He made 17 tackles over the past three seasons. Cambre blocked two punts and returned a fumble for a touchdown during his time at Louisiana.

Cambre put up outstanding numbers in his Pro Day, including a 4.43 40-yard dash.

Can Cambre follow in the footsteps of Steve Tasker, who didn’t catch a pass his final two collegiate seasons at Northwestern but made seven Pro Bowls during a 14-year career as a special teamer, or Nate Ebner, a rugby player growing up who had a 10-year career as a standout special teamer? Even Gunner Olszewski, who returned punts for the Giants in 2023, was a collegiate cornerback at tiny Bemidji State who found his way to the NFL as a return man/wide receiver.

Right now, it is hard to tell. Cambre has shown quickness and reliable hands as a receiver during spring practices, but until we get into preseason games it is going to be impossible to see if his collegiate special teams success will translate to the NFL.

There will be intense competition for the final one or two wide receiver roster spots this summer, and special teams can be a deciding factor. Most likely, though, landing on the practice squad would be a great outcome for Cambre.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/2025/6/...the-next-great-special-teams-first-nfl-player

 

[New York Giants]

Giants mandatory minicamp, Day 1: Live updates

Photo by Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Follow along as the Giants hold the first of two minicamp workouts

The New York Giants open their two-day mandatory minicamp on Tuesday. It’s a gray, wet day in East Rutherford, N.J., and a busy one at the Medowlands Sports Complex with World Cup action going on across the parking lot.

Practice begins at 11 a.m. Before that, offensive position coaches and head coach Brian Daboll will be available to media beginning at 10:30.

Stay tuned for all the details, and for an in-person practice report later in the day.

For now, follow along here for details, thanks to the wonders of social media.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/2025/6/17/24450762/new-york-giants-mandatory-minicamp-day-1-live-updates

 

[New York Giants]

Giants trivia: Your in-5 daily game, Thursday edition

Think you can figure out which Giants player we’re talking about? You’ll get five clues to figure him out in our new guessing game!

We’re back for another day of the Big Blue View in-5 daily trivia game. Game instructions are at the bottom if you’re new to the game! Feel free to share your results in the comments and feedback in the Google Form.

Today’s Big Blue View in-5 game​

If you can’t see the game due to Apple News or another service, click this game article.

Previous games​

Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Monday, June 16, 2025

Play more SB Nation in-5 trivia games​

NFL in-5
MLB in-5
MMA in-5

Big Blue View in-5 instructions​

The goal of the game is to guess the correct Giants player with the help of up to five clues. We’ll mix in BOTH ACTIVE AND RETIRED PLAYERS. It won’t be easy to figure it out in one or two guesses, but some of you might be able to nail it.

After you correctly guess the player, you can click “Share Results” to share how you did down in the comments and on social media. We won’t go into other details about the game as we’d like your feedback on it. How it plays, what you think of it, the difficulty level, and anything else you can think of that will help us improve this game. You can provide feedback in the comments of this article, or you can fill out this Google Form.

Enjoy!

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/2025/6/19/24452050/sb-nation-giants-daily-trivia-in-5

 

[New York Giants]

Abdul Carter headlines preseason ‘All-Rookie’ defense

John Jones-Imagn Images

Expectations are high for the third pick in the draft

There’s a strange feeling around the New York Giants.

I know it’s not food poisoning, I did that last Halloween and I definitely don’t recommend. But is it? Could it be...

Something approaching ‘hope’ or ‘optimism’?

Yeah, that might be it.

One of the biggest reasons for that strange “hopeful” feeling is how the Giants managed the top of the 2025 draft. They were able to not only secure Abdul Carter, who might wind up being the best player at any position in the draft, as well as their (potential) quarterback of the future in Jaxson Dart.

Nobody is expecting much from Dart this year, and the hope here is that he’s a Pro Bowl clip board holder as a rookie.

But Carter is a different matter entirely. He’s expected to be a major part of the Giants’ defense and help power a defensive resurgence for Big Blue. Expectations are so high for Carter that he’s headlining NFL.com’s 2025 All-Rookie defense.

Edge - Abdul Carter (Round 1, 3rd overall)​

[Prospect Profile]

Widely considered the best defensive player in this draft class, Carter is unsurprisingly the favorite for Defensive Rookie of the Year. His explosiveness off the edge jumps off the screen, but with Brian Burns and Kayvon Thibodeaux in place as the incumbent outside linebackers, what’s the plan with the No. 3 overall pick? Defensive coordinator Shane Bowen sees it as “a really good problem to have.” And he’s not wrong: You can never have enough good pass rushers.

“Ultimately, we want to get our best 11 on the field,” Bowen said last month. “Whatever way we gotta maneuver to do that, we gotta find ways to get the guys that can impact the game on the field.”

Carter is undoubtedly one of the best 11 on this defensive roster, and playing alongside Burns, Thibodeaux and DT Dexter Lawrence, the rookie’s poised to get the kind of one-on-one matchups he can feast on.

It really isn’t a surprise that Carter is the first defender listed in this exercise. As noted, he’s frontrunner for DROY and there’s an expectation that he’ll have a similar impact as Micah Parsons as a rookie. Giants’ defensive line coach Andre Patterson compared Carter to Elvis Dumervil for his natural ability to win rushes and get into the backfield.

As a refresher, Parsons had 13.0 sacks, 30 QB hits, 20 tackles for a loss, and 84 total tackles, and 3 forced fumbles as a rookie.

As noted in NFL.com’s piece, Carter will be sharing the field — and snaps — with Brian Burns and Kayvon Thibodeaux, as well as Dexter Lawrence.

Burns had one of the best pass rush win rates in the NFL last year despite playing through multiple injuries (groin, ankle, and neck are the ones we know about), while Lawrence was arguably the best pass rushing defensive tackle in the NFL prior to his own injury. Thibodeaux is also underrated as a pass rusher (more on that next week) so it might just be a true race to the quarterback for the Giants’ defensive front.

The question of how Shane Bowen gets all his rushers onto the field is going to be a fascinating one.

We’ll get far more information once the pads go on in training camp, but so far the Giants are moving Carter around the defensive front. He’s played EDGE, off-ball linebacker, and rushed from a defensive tackle alignment in practices this spring.

The speculation here (myself, personally) is that he’ll continue to be a wildcard for the Giants’ defense. My expectation is that he’ll play off-ball linebacker on early or short downs, drawing on his experience prior to 2024 at Penn State, before moving to somewhere along the line of scrimmage on late or long downs. The biggest weakness in his scouting report is a (relative) lack of play strength, as well as playing the run as an edge defender. Leaning into Carter’s versatility will allow the Giants to hide his weaknesses while also putting him in position to use his explosiveness to disrupt behind the line of scrimmage.

Carter might not rack up the same kind of numbers as Parsons, but he certainly seems likely to be an “instant impact” player.

Elsewhere in the NFC East

Unfortunately, Carter isn’t the only defender in the NFC East to get a mention on the All-Rookie defense.

Dallas Cowboys’ second-round pick Donovan Ezeiruaku (edge, Boston College - prospect profile), and Washington Commanders’ second-round pick Trey Amos (CB, Mississippi - prospect profile) both made the team as well.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/2025/6/...dge-abdul-carter-preseason-all-rookie-defense

 

[New York Giants]

Fantasy Football ‘25: 3 Quick fixes to improve your league

Baker Mayfield: A bargain in 1-QB Leagues | Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

Being open to change can enhance your league

Welcome back, readers! Summer officially starts this weekend, and that means draft prep for season-long, redraft fantasy leagues is underway. In case you missed it, my recent fantasy columns here at Big Blue View include the safest players and riskiest players for 2025, a beginner’s guide to Fantasy Football, and burning questions for the 2025 season.

As the summer gets rolling and the 2025 NFL season gets closer, I’ll have a lot more fantasy draft prep content for you right here at Big Blue View, including player rankings and tiers, players I’m avoiding and targeting at Average Draft Position (ADP), sleepers, draft strategy pieces, and more. So please check back regularly for new content. My columns are easy reads at the beach!

If you’ll indulge me today, I’m going to climb up on my soapbox one more time. Fantasy football is a great game, but it can be even better if leagues are willing to evaluate and tweak the rules and format. Today I’m offering three quick fixes to improve your league(s). Since lots of leagues implement rule changes in June and July, hopefully this article is timely.

Readers who followed my content at my old Pigskin Papers website have heard some of this (and more) from me before. I also posted a quick fixes piece at Big Blue View last summer. I won’t call myself a crusader, but I’ve given these topics a lot of thought over the years, and my own playing experience in 30-plus years in my main league (which has implemented almost all of the changes I’ve talked about in my columns, and more) has been extremely positive and rewarding. Like all games, fantasy football can be improved.

Fantasy football has been around since the early ‘60s. It’s grown into a multi billion-dollar industry, with tens of millions of people around the globe playing across a variety of daily, dynasty, best-ball, and redraft formats. Over time, “standard” versions of each format have taken hold, and most participants just accept the rules as they are. But fantasy managers control their leagues and can change league rules and settings to suit them. Many of the big hosting websites (like My Fantasy League (MFL), for example) are very flexible when it comes to settings and scoring. I like to think of the “standard” fantasy football format as nothing more than a guideline, as opposed to something sacrosanct that was handed down on a mountain.

Resistance to change is natural. But hear me out. You’re playing a great game with some dumb rules and settings. My focus is primarily season-long redraft leagues but some of the changes I’ll discuss work for other formats as well.

Note: All season-long player rankings shown below are for Half Point PPR, are on a points per game basis, and Week 18 is excluded.

Photo by Michael Owens/Getty Images
These 2 absolute studs falling to the end of Round 2? Wait, what?

1. Superflex – Yes, it IS the Flex I think it is

More and more leagues are moving to a Superflex (SF) format, and that’s a good thing. But there are still way too many 12, 10 and eight-team leagues out there where only one quarterback is permitted in the starting lineup. In a SF league, there is an extra Flex spot and it can be a QB, so the vast majority of teams in a SF format start two quarterbacks each week. Oh, and if you’re in an eight-team league...c’mon, man. Find two more warm bodies!

Quarterback is the most important position in football (and probably in all of team sports), Quarterbacks are by far the highest-paid players in the NFL, and QBs are the highest-scoring players in fantasy. Last season, the entire top six and eight of the top 10 fantasy scorers were QBs. But due to a lack of positional scarcity, quarterback has been greatly devalued in fantasy, to the point that in 1-QB leagues, it’s typical for no quarterbacks to go in the first 15-20 picks.

Right now, using a 1-QB setting, Josh Allen has the highest ADP of any quarterback, at No. 25. Sure, ADP is a little wonky in June, and he’ll probably settle in at an ADP of around 20 when draft season rolls around. Still, that’s crazy. Allen has finished as the No. 1 or No. 2 overall player in fantasy for FIVE straight seasons. You heard that right – FIVE! He’s also remarkably durable and boasts the longest consecutive starts streak among QBs, at 117 (including playoffs), which is more than double the next best active streak (Jared Goff). Without question, out of every player you could consider drafting this season, he’s the single safest bet to finish at or near the very top in fantasy points. He’s the definition of fantasy gold. And yet, there are currently 24 players ahead of him in ADP. Really? Really.

The absurdity continues as you move down the board. In 1-QB leagues, plenty of excellent fantasy quarterbacks will be available well into the middle rounds. Using current ADPs, QB9 Kyler Murray (the No. 16 overall fantasy scorer last season) has an ADP of 91 (mid-eighth round in a 12-teamer). There is simply too much supply of quality at the position, and it severely depresses the value of quarterbacks. Dak Prescott, Justin Herbert, Jordan Love and other very productive QBs are ranked outside the Top-12 at the position this season. That means they probably aren’t going to be every-week starters in a lot of leagues, despite the fact that they’re all likely to finish among the Top-25 overall fantasy scorers.

Love is a case-in-point. He finished last season as the QB12, which made him at best a borderline starter in a 12-team league. But he was also the overall No. 18 in total points scored. In a 1-QB league, too many high-scoring players at the quarterback position are either riding the bench or worse, sitting on the waiver wire, every week.

By doubling the number of starting quarterbacks across a league, SF market-corrects by creating an appropriate level of positional scarcity. It realigns quarterback value so that it’s closer to actual fantasy scoring value. In a SF draft, you can expect at least half of the first-round picks to be quarterbacks, and many more come off the board in subsequent early rounds. Shouldn’t the highest fantasy scorers be drafted early? SF also increases the options for employing different draft strategies.

While I think moving to SF is a no-brainer, I don’t recommend it for leagues that are larger than 12 teams. In those cases, you can start to run too thin at the position, and especially with the frequency of quarterback injuries, plus the presence of Bye weeks. But for everyone else, if you aren’t already there, you should seriously consider the SF format. If your Commissioner resists, send him or her my way.

Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images
Want Ja’Marr Chase? You’ll need to get VERY lucky with your draft slot.

2. Snakes are sinister creatures – switch to an auction draft!

The vast majority of redraft leagues employ a snake draft, where fantasy managers simply take turns drafting players. It’s like the annual NFL draft, but for the snake feature: Round 1 goes 1-12, then Round 2 goes 12-1, and so forth. Seems like a good idea that promotes fairness, right?

Let’s wait a second before answering that. Do you covet Saquon Barkley or Ja’Marr Chase this year? Bijan Robinson? Jahmyr Gibbs? Sure! Who wouldn’t? Well, if your league has 12 teams and employs a snake draft, then going in, you’ve probably got about a 25-30% chance of drawing a random draft slot number that will give you an opportunity to draft even one of these four stars, and you have no chance whatsoever of drafting two of them. That in and of itself is a major indictment of snake drafts, and it goes beyond the first few rounds, as throughout the draft, there will be players that you won’t be able to consider taking without either reaching or getting very lucky.

I get the appeal of a snake draft—it’s easy, fast, convenient, and players within a certain range just kind of fall to you each time it’s your turn. Yes, there’s plenty of positional strategy and some skill, but if you really want to enhance the fantasy draft experience, then try an auction draft. In an auction draft, franchises take turns nominating players, and each player goes to the highest bidder.

The advantages of an auction draft are many. In a nutshell, it’s 100% egalitarian with no preset advantage or disadvantage based on draft slot, you’re never blocked from getting specific players unless and until you don’t have enough money left to bid on someone you want, there’s more strategy and skill involved, and it’s more gratifying if you’re able to construct a strong team. I also think it’s more fun. Draft night comes just once per year, and in most cases, it’s a group of people who have a history and like being together. So why rush it? If need be, it can be done remotely, just like a snake draft. Try an auction once and it’s unlikely that you’ll ever go back. Going once, going twice…GONE.

Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images
Waiver adds can win leagues — so why not make it fair?

3. Fix the waiver wire process

I have never understood why the vast majority of fantasy leagues process waivers on Tuesday night at midnight. At that time, almost every NFL team has yet to practice for the upcoming week, and information about player availability for that week (and beyond) is limited.

Waiver runs should be no earlier than Wednesday midnight, and Thursday afternoon is even better. Why not give owners as much information as possible before they need to make decisions on drops and pickups? Seriously, if anyone can tell me why Tuesday waivers isn’t one of the dumbest things out there, please drop a comment below and enlighten me. And while we’re here, any league that still allows open waivers on a first come-first served basis (before league-wide waivers are processed for everyone) should be shut down by the Fantasy Police. I’m not done - if you’re still using priority waivers, that’s dumb, too, so get rid of that. OK, I need to take a breath.

I’m back. The best system, which many leagues now use, is a free agent acquisition budget (FAAB), where each franchise starts with a fixed cap to spend on free agents for the duration of the season ($100 or $200 is typical), and blind bids are used to process weekly free agent claims. If you change nothing else, at least make the acquisition of free agents a fair process.

OK, that pretty much covers it. And consider yourselves lucky, because I spared you my rant on the biggest change I’d like to see take hold, which is to get rid of head-to-head play. In my view it’s the most consequential improvement your league can make, and there are some very good options to use instead, that fairly reward the better teams. But that’s another story for another time.

While we’re here: Full-point PPR is too rich. A screen pass for no gain (or worse) is worth the same points as a 10-yard run. That’s no bueno. Half-point PPR is more sensible. And last but not least, using individual defensive players (IDP) is more fun than having a team defense/special teams. D/STs are the ultimate crapshoots, and the fact that people will sometimes bench a D/ST on Monday night to assure a win is reason enough to eradicate it as a feature of the game.

OK, NOW I’m really done. Thanks for listening! If you’ve got other rule changes you’d like to see, please drop them in the comments.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/2025/6/...tball-25-3-quick-fixes-to-improve-your-league

 

[New York Giants]

When will Jaxson Dart start? ‘Pretty darn early,’ says NFL insider

Jaxson Dart | John Jones-Imagn Images

Daniel Jeremiah thinks Dart will be the Giants’ QB before the season is half over

Add NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah to the list of those who think this will not be a full redshirt season for New York Giants’ rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart.

“I think he’s got a chance to play pretty darn early here,” Jeremiah told Rich Eisen. “You just kind of listen to the words of Brian Daboll and you get the sense, this was his guy. He’s invested in him, and he seems to really, really like him ... it sounds a little different the way he’s talking about him.

“To me that makes it sound like , hey, this isn’t something that this is a redshirt year for him as they hand the ball to Russell Wilson for a full season. I think we’re gonna see a lot of Jaxson Dart this year.”

Jeremiah’s prediction for Dart’s first start? Week 7 against the Denver Broncos, a game that comes after a 10-day layoff for the Giants.

If the Giants are not winning enough games to legitimately feel they are contending for a playoff spot, there could easily come a point in time when it no longer makes sense for Dart not to play.

Could that be Week 5 against the New Orleans Saints? Week 7 vs. Denver, as Jeremiah predicts? Week 9 vs. the San Francisco 49ers? Week 13 vs. the New England Patriots? Week 15 against the Washington Commanders following the Giants’ bye?

No matter how the season unfolds for the Giants, there will constantly be an undercurrent of wondering when Dart will play.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/2025/6/...dart-start-pretty-darn-early-says-nfl-insider