Obviously, the most prominent question regarding the 2025 New York Giants in the court of public opinion is whether the franchise can get its quarterback situation solved for the first time since Eli Manning's prime, which ended about a decade ago. The free-agency additions of Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston, and the first-round selection of Ole Miss's Jaxson Dart, have things leaning in the right direction after a 2024 season in which Daniel Jones, Drew Lock, Tommy DeVito, and Tim Boyle combined for one of the NFL's least intimidating quarterback rooms.
But if the Giants are to recover from the 3-14 record they put forth in 2024, and the fact that they've had one winning season in the last eight years, it will be up to defensive coordinator Shane Bowen and his crew to improve things on that side of the ball. The 2024 Giants ranked 28th in Defensive DVOA — 26th against the run and 30th against the pass — and that really went out the window once super-tackle Dexter Lawrence lost the rest of the season to a dislocated elbow in Week 13.
Overall, Big Blue's defense allowed an opponent passer rating of 103.2, the NFL's third-worst ahead of only the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Carolina Panthers, and their pass defense would have been even more exposed had the Giants' offense not been un-dangerous enough to force opposing offenses to throw the ball just 548 times, the fourth-lowest total in the NFL.
Things weren't much better when it came to run defense. Even when Lawrence was on the field, this defense allowed 6.1 yards per carry, and a rushing touchdown rate of 4.8%.
“Quite frankly, I didn’t think our defense played very well this year at all,” team President/CEO/co-owner John Mara said in January, when asked about the state of the team that has the NFL's worst record over the last eight seasons, and why he was sticking with head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen despite all of that. “I’m tired of watching teams go up and down the field on us. So, I think that has to be addressed.”
To be fair, the franchise has does as much as possible over the last two years to address it. The pass-rush should be utterly formidable with a healthy Lawrence inside, as well as edge defenders Brian Burns, Kayvon Thibodeaux, the underrated Chauncey Gholston (the former Cowboys pass-rusher acquired in free agency), and third-overall pick Abdul Carter from Penn State, who looks to have all the tools to bring a Micah Parsons-level bash to the defensive line. Last season, the six-foot-3, 252-pound Carter totaled 13 sacks, 10 quarterback hits, and 43 quarterback hurries in 350 pass-rushing snaps for Penn State, and the metrics don't really state the total effect Carter can have on enemy offenses.
"I mean, you got three guys for two spots when you look at it from the outside in," Bowen said in early June of the Burns/Thibodeaux/Carter edge trifecta. "It's a really good problem to have. Got three really good players, three really talented players. Two of them that have done it in this league at a high level. Again, I think that's something from a staff standpoint that we're working through trying to find a way. Ultimately we want to get our best 11 on the field, whatever way we got to maneuver to do that. We got to find ways to get the guys that can impact the game on the field. So there is some versatility there.
"With Abdul, he did a little bit of that stuff off the ball in college early in his career, so there is some versatility there and some versatility with what we could potentially do with Burns as well. Again, making sure in Abdul's case that we understand what it takes to be an edge player in this league and all the development that comes with that. But at the same time, making sure we find ways to get the guys that can potentially impact the game for us on the field."
And to address that leaky secondary, the Giants went out in free agency to add two important pieces — cornerback Paulson Adebo, formerly of the New Orleans Saints, and safety Jevon Holland, formerly of the Miami Dolphins. Over the last two seasons, Adebo has been one of the league's most effective cornerbacks, allowing 84 catches on 145 targets for 1,181 yards, two touchdowns, seven interceptions, 18 pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 68.8. Had he not 10 games in his 2024 season to a broken femur, we would have seen even more of Adebo's expertise.
It's clear that when healthy, Adebo is a No. 1 cornerback, and the Giants needed that desperately. The three-year, $54 million contract with $38.5 million guaranteed the team gave Adebo could turn out to be a radical bargain if everything goes well.
Another reason among the many that the Giants' defense fell apart last season was the absence of safety Xavier McKinney, who signed a four-year, $67 million deal with $23 million guaranteed with the Green Bay Packers before the 2024 campaign began. The Giants were pennywise and pound-foolish in that regard, because nobody else on the team could replicate McKinney's five-tool palette everywhere on the field. So, in this free agency track, the team signed Holland, who has a lot of the same characteristics, to a three-year, $45.3 million contract with $30.3 million guaranteed.
Hey, at least they learned from that mistake.
"Just looking at the team, I feel like we have a lot of good pieces on the roster," Holland said upon his signing, when asked why he chose this team above all others. "It was exciting for me to come in and be able to contribute at that. Looking up and down the roster I really felt good about the level of talent that we had on the roster. That was big for me."
So, now it's fully on Shane Bowen to make the most of all that talent. Bowen's addition to the staff, replacing Don "Wink" Martindale as he did, was a rough transition. The Giants went from a blitz rate of 45.4% in 2023 to 27.9% in 2024.
The pressure rate stayed about the same, which spoke to the additions of talent, but the press coverage rate of 51% under Martindale in 2023 to 33% in 2024 under Bowen presented problems — especially for second-year cornerback Deonte Banks, who was the best press cornerback in his draft class, and frequently seemed disinterested in Bowen's more passive concepts. As Adebo also was outstanding in press with the Saints, Bowen needs to align his playbook with what his players do best — something that didn't happen enough last season.
If that doesn't turn around, the Giants may have to admit yet another mistake, and move along to someone else.
"I think that's a big part of coaching," Bowen said in June, when asked about the need to align his preferred concepts with the personnel he's been given. "We've got to make sure we're doing everything we can to put these guys individually in positions they're most successful at, right, to make sure we're comfortable. Obviously there's going to be different things within the scheme that you can't always do certain things every single play, right? But doing our best to maximize their skillsets to what they're most comfortable at, putting them in positions to do things."
Every coach says variations of that; not every coach pulls it off. The Giants had far too much talent on defense last season to be where they were in that regard, and they've loaded up again to turn things around. Answering the big questions about the defense will be the job of the staff far more than the players.
Because without a better defense, it really doesn't matter who the quarterback is.
(All advanced metrics courtesy of NFL Pro, Pro Football Focus, and Sports Info Solutions).