Jason Leach
The New York Giants established their foundation under new head coach John Harbaugh with the seven picks the team made in the 2026 NFL Draft.
- Avrell Reese, LB, Ohio State (5th overall)
- Francis Mauigoa, OT Miami (10th overall)
- Colton Hood, CB Tennessee (37th overall)
- Malachi Fields, WR Notre Dame (74th overall)
- Bobby Jamison-Travis, DT Auburn (186th overall)
- J.C. Davis, OL Illinois (192nd overall)
- Jack Kelly, LB BYU (193rd overall)
Although we’ll have to wait and see how the players produce on the field to properly evaluate them, the Giants should be considered one of the winners of the draft, considering the players they drafted where they were taken.
It was eye-opening to see how the franchise operated the first draft under Harbaugh, and here are the four biggest takeaways.
The Giants signing D.J. Reader seems inevitable
Defensive tackle was one of the team’s biggest needs coming into the draft in the wake of trading Dexter Lawrence to the Cincinnati Bengals. They eventually took Jamison-Travis in the sixth round, but he’s a project and not ready to be a starter. This is why the team is expected to sign free agent D.J. Reader at any moment.
The 6’3, 330-pound defensive tackle started 32 games for the Detroit Lions the last two seasons and had 51 tackles with 12 quarterback hits and three sacks. He spent his previous four seasons with the Bengals, and spent the first four years of his career with the Houston Texans.
Reader will turn 32 in July, and he would be the ideal candidate to fill the void in the middle of the defense for one season, until the team drafts a defensive tackle in the 2027 draft.
The signing of the veteran defensive tackle could come as early as this week or sometime during OTAs.
New regime believes you can never have too many pass rushers
There’s an old Giant adage that you can never have too many pass rushers, and the Giants’ new regime, led by Harbaugh and Senior Vice President of Football Operations Dawn Aponte, believes in this as well.
Although Avrell Reese will play inside linebacker with New York, he played the majority of his snaps in his final year at Ohio State playing on the edge. He’ll now rush from the A gap and will occasionally line up on the outside in passing situations.
The team now has four prominent pass rushers in Reese, Brian Burns, Abdul Carter, and Kayvon Thibodeaux. There were reports that the team engaged in trade talks with the New Orleans Saints for Thibodeaux. But the Saints didn’t offer the compensation the Giants were looking for, and they decided not to part ways with the 25-year-old edge rusher.
It’s possible that later this offseason, the team may part ways with Thibodeaux. But for now, they have an assortment of pass rushers who are going to make life difficult for opposing offensive lines. They may not be the 2011 NASCAR package that guided the franchise to victory in Super Bowl XLVI, led by Justin Tuck, Osi Umenyiora, Jason Pierre-Paul, and Mathias Kiwanuka as they played on the defensive line. But fans are hopeful that this generation of pass rushers will help the franchise win a Super Bowl, just as the previous generation of rushers.
Related: 6 Best 2026 NFL Draft Classes, including Bills and Browns
The team got great value with their picks
One of the reasons Big Blue has received high praise for the players they selected is the value of where they selected them.
Some felt Reese would be a top-three pick, but he fell to five, and New York rushed to hand their card in to take him. Mauigoa was viewed as the most pro-ready offensive lineman in the draft, and some mock drafts had him going inside the top 10. For the Giants to get him at 10 is a great value for a team that desperately needed offensive line help.
In terms of value picks, New York getting Hood with the 37th overall pick might turn into one of the best value picks of the 2026 NFL Draft. He had a first-round grade by many and will have a chance to start at corner.
The Giants traded the 105th and 145th picks in the 2026 draft and a fourth-round pick in the 2027 draft to trade up and take Malachi Fields at 74. The 6’4, 218-pound wideout has five years of playing experience, and if not for his 4.61 40 time, he would have been off the board sooner.
The team’s final pick, Jack Kelly, had a combined 15 sacks in his two seasons at BYU to go along with 106 tackles. The versatile linebacker will see playing time on special teams but will eventually get into the defensive rotation.
Caleb Downs was not as high on Giants’ draft board
In the buildup to the draft, there’s also speculation on how high players are on teams’ draft boards. For months leading up to the draft, reports were that the Giants were very high on Ohio State safety Caleb Downs.
Several mock drafts had New York taking the All-American safety with the fifth overall pick. Then, when they acquired the 10th overall pick in the Dexter Lawrence trade, the belief was that if they didn’t take Downs at five, they would surely take him at 10 if he was still on the board. But that didn’t happen.
Big Blue passed on him twice, and now they’ll have to face him twice a year as the Dallas Cowboys traded up to take him with the 11th pick. Time will tell if Big Blue will regret not taking the best safety in the draft.
Related: 2026 NFL Draft Stunners: Biggest Surprises From Round 1, Including Simpson to LA Rams
