If the Giants draft Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders No. 3 overall, no fan is going to want to see Russell Wilson or Jameis Winston under center.
The second Wilson struggles as the Giants’ Week 1 starter, the calls for Sanders would rain down. And the fans wouldn’t be wrong.
Wilson, 36, and Winston, 31, do not project to turn this bad Giants team into a good one. They are not the answer to a winning season that saves Brian Daboll’s job.
If a video gamer assembled a quarterback room of Wilson, Winston and Tommy DeVito on Madden franchise mode, they would restart the game.
Wilson made clear at his introductory Zoom press conference on Wednesday, though, that he is here to start at quarterback and to win.
“I expect to be the starter and rock and roll every day,” Wilson said with his trademark rehearsed enthusiasm.
He was asked if he’d be comfortable giving way to a first-round rookie QB early this season, or if he had received assurances that he would be the starter all year. And Wilson made clear he intends to play.
He compared his role as the quarterback as “a C.E.O. of an organization,” and C.E.O.’s don’t defer to anyone. They lead.
“If we draft a quarterback, we’ll make sure he does everything he can to be ready to go,” Wilson said. “But for me it’s about the process of winning. I’m focused on winning as the quarterback of the Giants, to help us win, to lead… Being inside those white lines, that’s my favorite place to be.”
If the Giants had signed only Winston or only Wilson, they would still look like a team that was poised to pick a QB at No. 3 overall. They’d have the veteran placeholder who was obviously biding time until the rookie was ready for an expected early debut.
But signing both Winston and Wilson for a total of $14.5 million in 2025 clouds the picture of how a rookie No. 3 overall QB pick would even get to the field, especially after listening to Wilson’s insistence on playing Wednesday.
It’s hard to imagine Winston joined the Giants to be a No. 3 behind a rookie and Wilson, too, although Winston has not yet been introduced officially as a Giant.
It seems to point more to Giants GM Joe Schoen seriously considering a position player like Colorado corner/receiver Travis Hunter at No. 3 instead, frankly, and finding a quarterback somewhere else in the draft.
The priority is always to find a franchise quarterback and take him, especially for a team with no future at the position in the building. So if the Giants believe that quarterback exists in this draft and he’s available at No. 3, that’s who they should pick.
They can’t force a quarterback just to take one, though. Otherwise, they’ll be using the No. 3 pick on a developmental project that isn’t playing, rather than improving the team for both the present and future by adding the Heisman winner Hunter or Penn State edge rusher Abdul Carter.
That’s one difficult part of having Schoen and Daboll both on the hot seat in year four: the player they pick at No. 3 has to help them win.
The Giants don’t have control of which players fall to them, thanks to their late season win over the Colts. So they are technically prepared for both scenarios with the additions of Wilson and Winston, even though the backwards order of their signings looks scattershot and panicky.
This wasn’t the team’s first, second, third or even fourth preferred option, though. And it wasn’t Wilson’s preference, either, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which reported Wednesday that Wilson wanted to remain with the Steelers before he agreed to sign with New York.
The Giants’ first QB plan for 2025 seemed to point to the Giants not taking a QB at No. 3, as well.
If the Giants had successfully traded for the Rams’ Matthew Stafford, investing high draft picks and $50 million per year in a starting QB, it was hard to believe that they were also going to use the No. 3 selection on a young quarterback who would just sit on the bench for two years.
Their team isn’t good enough to do that. They would have run out of time to execute whatever that plan might look like.
Stafford didn’t happen. Aaron Rodgers didn’t happen. Joe Flacco didn’t happen. And they aren’t going to be able to reach Miami quarterback Cam Ward, who is tracking to be the Tennessee Titans’ No. 1 overall pick.
So now they’re hurtling toward the NFL Draft with two veteran quarterbacks on the roster. And while they could use their premium pick on a rookie to stock that room, Wilson’s words and the Giants’ behavior clearly points to them possibly passing on a passer at No. 3.