NFL Draft: Giants are big winners as team gains an identity

So much attention is rightfully paid to quarterbacks. It’s warranted, of course. Teams can’t win without getting elite play from the position.

The Giants? They needed to address that spot big time this offseason. Trading up for Jaxson Dart in the first round, they hope, accomplished that task.

But the Giants were facing plenty of other issues. When team president and CEO John Mara spoke at the end of the season in January, he was asked about those holes.

“Quite frankly, I didn’t think our defense played very well this year at all,” he said of the 2024 season. “I know that when you have an offense that performs like that, you’re putting more pressure on your defense, but we need to make improvements there. I’m tired of watching teams go up and down the field on us. I think that has to be addressed.”

The Giants finished their offseason-long dedication to that endeavor this weekend, and it’s why they are one of the biggest winners of the 2025 NFL Draft.

Selecting edge rusher Abdul Carter with the third overall pick and adding defensive tackle Darius Alexander in the third round gives them one of the top defensive fronts in the league. With the free-agent signings of Jevon Holland and Paulson Adebo in the secondary, they now have the personnel to potentially be a top five unit.

“I like what we’ve done on defense,” general manager Joe Schoen said.

It gives the Giants something they haven’t had in a while: an identity.

Schoen and coach Brian Daboll definitely have a type, and it is starting to fill their locker room. For a while, the Giants stressed the idea of character over production and brought in players who were great citizens but couldn’t win. Now they are after more edgy types, a transition that began last year with the selection of Malik Nabers and continued with Carter, Dart and even fourth-round running back Cam Skattebo, who plays just like his name sounds. They are players who match Daboll’s intensity.

Schoen said “adding dawgs and a certain type of mentality” is a conscious decision.

“And then you add another guy like that in the first round like Abdul Carter and the motor he plays with and the toughness and the violence, that can really help,” he said. “That can help develop an identity, those type of players. The more of those guys that you can acquire, the more that can come to life.”

Here are a few other winners — and, naturally, some losers — from the draft:

LOSER: SHEDEUR SANDERS

The Browns’ selection of Sanders was not a surprise. Selecting him in the fifth round with the 144th overall pick certainly was.

The plummet that captivated America for the better part of three days finally ended on Saturday with that decision, which felt like more of a lifeboat of mercy than a football decision. The Browns already had said what they thought of Sanders by drafting another quarterback, Dillon Gabriel, in the third round. Now they are putting a player with the highest profile in the class at the bottom of their depth chart.

Will the experience humble Sanders? Crush him? Drive him? We’ll see. It certainly cost him millions in salary. He hasn’t faced much adversity in his athletic career, so it’s hard to say how he’ll react to this, but it’s a hole he certainly can climb out of. Whatever becomes of him will continue to make headlines as we now follow the exploits of the world’s most famous fifth-string quarterback.

WINNER: ROBERT SALEH

The former head coach of the Jets returned to the 49ers as their defensive coordinator, which is where he had the most success in his career. As a welcome back gift, the team used its first five picks on defensive players, including edge rusher Mykel Williams and tackle Alfred Collins in the first two rounds. Oh, and speaking of recent Jets (interim) head coaches, the Falcons went defense with their first four picks — including edge rushers Jalon Walker and James Pearce Jr. in the first round — for new defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich.

LOSER: CLEVELAND FANS

These poor people spent the past four months staring longingly at the second overall pick, believing their team could turn it into a franchise-altering selection. For a while it seemed as if they would use it on two-way star Travis Hunter, which would have at least been interesting. Instead, the Browns traded back, picked up defensive lineman Mason Graham (strong but far from flashy) at fifth overall, then drafted a pair of quarterbacks in the third and fifth rounds. That indicates the goal of this 2025 season will be to find a quarterback of the future in next year’s draft.

WINNER: JETS SEASON-TICKET HOLDERS

One of the benefits of keeping a low profile the way these new Jets have seemed hellbent on doing with unsexy but competent picks is an absence of the natural storylines, national narratives and inherent dramas that have surrounded the organization the past few years. So after two seasons of Aaron Rodgers-driven prime-time and stand-alone games that made the trek to MetLife Stadium (and getting up the following day for work) miserable, the soon-to-be-released 2025 Jets schedule should be a lot more fan-friendly. Enjoy the return to 1 o’clock Sunday kickoffs for home games!

LOSER: SAM DARNOLD

Things started out well for the quarterback in his new team’s first draft since he signed with Seattle. The Seahawks picked an offensive lineman (Grey Zabel) and a tight end (Elijah Arroyo) in the first two rounds. Then they went quarterback with Jalen Milroe in the third round. It’s not quite the same slap in the face the Falcons dealt to Kirk Cousins last year when they signed him to a $100 million contract then drafted Michael Penix Jr. in the first round, but it’s tough when a team drafts your potential replacement before you’ve even taken a snap for them.

WINNER: BARRYN SORRELL

The Texas edge rusher attended the draft in person, sat in the green room through 123 picks, then finally heard his name called in the fourth round. The payoff? It was the Packers who picked him, and with the draft in Green Bay, that meant he received an amazing ovation from the home crowd. The wait was worth it.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.