Giants can solve their quarterback problem by trading up for the No. 1 pick to select Cam Ward
Miami quarterback Cam Ward throws during the first half of a game against Syracuse on Nov. 30, 2024 in Syracuse, New York. Credit: AP/Adrian Kraus
INDIANAPOLIS
The Giants are a beholden team when it comes to their quarterback search.
That’s their biggest problem at this moment. They have options, certainly, which, until Friday, included everything and everyone from Matthew Stafford in a trade, Sam Darnold or Justin Fields as free agents, or any of the half-dozen or so players at this week’s NFL Combine who have the potential to truly succeed in the NFL. It gives the Giants a wide spectrum of choices to pursue.
None of them, though, are within their direct control. They are all contingent on decisions by other teams. It’s a bad place to be, having to rely on leftovers for your team’s survival.
They got a bitter reminder of what those taste like on Friday when their strong overtures toward the Rams and Stafford’s camp to trade for the 37-year-old former Super Bowl winner came up empty. Stafford agreed to remain with the Rams, which was always the likeliest end to his saga.
The same door-shutting-on-their-noses feeling might happen in free agency. If they want Darnold or Fields or anyone else, they’ll have to wait to see if they’re even going to be available. Both may wind up re-signing with their current teams, and even if they don’t, they might not want to come to the Giants.
And the draft? The Giants currently have the third pick, which means they’ll need to sweat through two quarterback-needy teams ahead of them — not to mention the prospect of another team trading up ahead of them — before they are on the clock.
As they turn their attention toward the non-Stafford options for a veteran at quarterback — a pool of players that will include Aaron Rodgers but will not be solely focused on him at this point — there really is only one way out of this dependency.
They need to make a deal with the Titans for the first pick in the 2025 NFL Draft sooner rather than later, and they need to use it to select Cam Ward.
It’s the only version of this story in which they can ensure that they’ll get something out of this process, be able to honestly say they have addressed the gaping hole on their roster, and give the franchise something close to hope.
Are there better endings than that for the Giants? Probably. But those all come with the risk of winding up with nothing.
The only thing worse than enduring these last few years of middling, cringy football would be not being able to make it count for something positive and being stuck with an unappetizing quarterback who will turn 2025 into nothing more than throat-clearing for an entirely new regime in 2026.
Ward may not be a sure thing as a prospect, but he could be a sure thing to be available for the Giants, and at some point, that might be more important to them.
Ward spoke at the Combine on Friday and said his meeting with the Giants went “really well.”
It was one of their first in-depth conversations. After the Giants spent time with Shedeur Sanders at the East-West Shrine Bowl and with Jaxson Dart and others at the Senior Bowl, their face-to-faces with Ward have been limited by his lack of participation in those events.
Ward said he enjoyed meeting with Brian Daboll and having a chance to watch their offense and their players, including wide receiver Malik Nabers.
“There are a lot of similar concepts to what I did in my previous years at Incarnate Word and Miami,” he said.
As for the unique pressures that come with playing in the New York area, Ward said: “I’m not worried about no spotlight. There isn’t one time in my life when I wasn’t in the spotlight. It’s crazy to see how everything can change, so I’m not worried about no spotlight. The cameras are going to find you, you’re a franchise quarterback somewhere, so I just put my head down and work every day, and in the long run, it’s going to pay off.”
Ward said the game that best defines him was his 39-38 win over Cal on Oct. 5 in which he led Miami on four straight touchdown drives, including a scoring pass with 26 seconds left to overcome a 25-point deficit. Of course it was his play, including a pick-6, that had helped put them in that predicament.
“I had some bad plays in the first half but I was able to get back on track and have some good plays in the second half to win the game,” he said.
That also was one of the games general manager Joe Schoen and the Giants’ scouting contingent attended personally.
“They dug themselves a little bit of a hole,” Schoen said. “Some of it was they were in a hole because of him, but he also was able to get them out of it, and they won the game because of him. Those are traits that you look for. The gotta-have-it moments, whether it’s Virginia Tech, that Cal game to bring a team back. When everybody in the building knows you’re going to throw it, that you can throw it.”
Ward also comes with the Nabers stamp of approval. During Super Bowl week last month, the Giants’ record-setting receiver talked up Ward during an interview on SiriusXM’s NFL Radio.
“He’s comfortable when he’s back there,” Nabers said. “He throws the ball in spots you’re not really supposed to throw the ball, but he has that crazy arm talent. He’s mobile. I’ve seen him come back from some games. I’m like, nah, this game is over with, and he’s just dotting. He’s very efficient. He has crazy arm talent. I feel like he’s a leader that wants to bring people along to win.
“You look at that Miami team through the years. Without him, their record wasn’t like that. You bring a guy like that on the team, you know the record shows what kind of leader he is, what kind of quarterback he is. So having that on a team, that’s what you need.”
Of course there were plenty of other teams and players who saw the same things. That’s why Ward is so coveted this week and why any organization with even a hint of a question at his position is doing their diligence. That includes the Titans (for whom Ward said he would be a “plug-and-play” pick), the Browns (Ward said they have “an unbelievable offensive line” and is excited to throw to Jerry Jeudy), the Raiders (“It’ll fit my play style,” he said of Chip Kelly and Pete Carroll’s schemes there) and even the other New York team.
“I know it would be elite,” Ward said of being a Jet, even though he is expected to be long gone by the time they pick at No. 7. “Especially with the receiver corps they have, the defense they have. Being able to talk with the head coach for the first time was exciting. I think the Jets are not too far off, maybe a couple pieces. I’m just hoping I can be one of them.”
The Giants can’t let that happen, not in their own town and not anywhere else in the league. Not in a world in which they could be left with scraps and dregs.
“I just think from a situational standpoint, all the teams looking for a quarterback are going to be good situations,” Ward finally said of his many suitors.
Right now, the Giants are among them. If they want to be the only one, they need to strike that deal, get the first pick in the draft and get their quarterback.
Every team wants to control its own destiny. This is how the Giants can grab the reins of theirs.
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.
