The 2023 NFL Draft is mere weeks away. There's a lot of intrigue at the top, of course, but just as interesting is what might happen near the end of the first round. That's where the playoff teams are drafting (for the most part), after all. One such team is the New York Giants, who surprised almost everybody by going 9-7-1 during the regular season and then defeating the Minnesota Vikings in the first round of the playoffs before falling to the eventual NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles in the divisional round.
New York has already had an eventful offseason, and has 10 selections in the upcoming draft. The Giants re-signed Daniel Jones (four years, $160 million total, $82 million fully guaranteed) and franchise-tagged Saquon Barkley, entering the 2023 offseason lighter on cap space than one would have expected around this time a year ago. Still, New York was able to swing a trade for tight end Darren Waller, sign linebacker Bobby Okereke, bring back wide receivers Isaiah Hodgins, Sterling Shepard and Darius Slayton, supplement them with Parris Campbell and Jamison Crowder and fortify the defense with Rakeem Nunez-Roches, Bobby McCain and Amani Oruwariye.
With the exception of Waller, none of the players the Giants brought in necessarily represents a significant enough upgrade to forego drafting a player at the same position. (Okereke is a big upgrade on last year's Giants linebackers, but he's not a star-caliber player himself.) That means New York can go in any number of directions when it comes on the clock with the No. 26 overall pick at the end of this month.
Here's a look at how things might play out later this month ...
| Round | Pick | Player | Position | College |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 25 | Deonte Banks | CB | Maryland |
| 2 | 57 | Derick Hall | EDGE | Auburn |
| 3 | 89 | Rashee Rice | WR | SMU |
| 4 | 128 | Ronnie Hickman | S | Ohio State |
| 5 | 160 | Chandler Zavala | IOL | NC State |
| 5 | 172 | YaYa Diaby | EDGE | Louisville |
| 6 | 209 | Deneric Prince | RB | Tulsa |
| 7 | 240 | Alex Forsyth | IOL | Oregon |
| 7 | 243 | Nesta Jade Silvera | IDL | Arizona State |
| 7 | 254 | Drake Thomas | LB | NC State |
With the first three picks, we attacked premium positions: cornerback, edge rusher, and wide receiver. New York has startable players at each of those positions, but nobody elite enough that they can't be upgraded upon.
Banks measured at 6-foot-0, 197 pounds, and while he doesn't have ideal length (31 3/8-inch arms), he did blaze through the 40-yard dash in 4.35 seconds and jump out of the building in both the vertical (42 inches) and broad jump (11 feet, 4 inches) portions of the combine. His closest comparables in Relative Athletic Score are Byron Jones and Marshon Lattimore, a pair of first-round cornerbacks whose athleticism allowed them to succeed over the long term. The bet here is Banks can do the same.
Hall also tested as a high-level athlete despite being a bit on the smaller side at 6-2, 254 pounds. He rated highly in my Weighted Overall Win Rating (WOW Rating) metric, which indicated that he made plays in the backfield about as often as the much-more-highly-touted Lukas Van Ness. Over the last two seasons at Auburn, Hall picked up 15.5 sacks and 24 tackles for loss, working as both a linebacker and defensive lineman. That type of flexibility, combined with his athleticism, make him a good fit for Wink Martindale, who likes to bring pressure from every conceivable angle.
One thing Rice has that New York's current crop of wide receivers mostly doesn't: explosiveness down the field. Coming off a season during which he racked up 96 catches for 1,355 yards and 10 touchdowns, Rice was targeted on passes of 15-plus air yards more often than all but two players in the country. He hauled in 23 such passes for 678 yards and six scores, per Tru Media. Adding that type of downfield playmaking to what Waller, Hodgins, Shepard, Wan'Dale Robinson, Barkley and the rest of the Giants' weapons can do underneath would help open up the offense a bit, which is something they'll badly need to do in Year 2 of the Brian Daboll era.
The Giants saw versatile safety Julian Love leave for Seattle in free agency and replaced him with McCain, who is a nice stopgap starter who can hold things down while a draft pick gets ready to take over the job. Hickman lined up all over the place for OSU last season, taking 379 snaps as a box safety, 203 as a free safety and 164 as a slot corner, according to Pro Football Focus. He has the versatility to slide into that role in time.
With the remainder of the Giants' Day 3 picks, we targeted help along the offensive and defensive lines (Zavala and Forsyth on offense, Diaby and Silvera on defense), while also taking swings at positions where the Giants may need contributors in the future but shouldn't necessarily be lining up to use premium picks, given their financial outlay at the position (running back Deneric Prince and linebacker Drake Thomas). If any of those players develops into rotational contributors, that's a win. If they become a starter, it's a home run.