When John Harbaugh said he wants big players, he meant it.

The Giants’ head coach brought his largest Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman to New York on Wednesday, securing 6-8, 370-pound right guard Daniel Faalele on a one-year contract.

Faalele, 26, pronounced fah-ah-LAY-lay, becomes the second offensive lineman to sign a cheap, short-term contract with the Giants in the last few days.

Amid the chaos of Monday’s Dexter Lawrence trade request, Harbaugh also signed interior lineman Lucas Patrick, 32, a 6-3, 313-pound journeyman who has played all three interior offensive line positions for three different teams the past three years.

Neither Faalele nor Patrick is a plug and play signing. They both will compete for roles on the inside of Harbaugh’s offensive line, but they should not be viewed as solutions.

Faalele graded 42nd out of 57 guards who played at least 50% of the NFL season’s full snaps, per Pro Football Focus. He is a road grader who can eliminate bodies in his path, but his misses are whiffs that blow up plays.

Patrick started at right guard for the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 1 of last season but injured his calf 16 snaps in and didn’t play much the rest of the season. He played a lot of left guard for the New Orleans Saints in 2024 after serving as the Chicago Bears’ starting center in 2023.

“I think the offensive line is like our team, it’s a work in progress,” Harbaugh said at the NFL owners’ meetings in Phoenix. “The offensive line and defensive line, that’s where games are won and lost. That’s where it starts. We’ve got to try to build the best offensive line and defensive line in football. That’s gotta be our goal.

“Maybe it’s a one-year proposition, maybe it’s not. We’re gonna find out,” the coach added. “But we’re gonna sure try. We’ve got work to do there. We still have free agency available to us. We still have the draft, and we have really good players.”

Shopping in the bargain bin for interior offensive lineman indicates two things: the Giants didn’t have the money to compete for top guards on the free agent market — “you can overpay, but you can’t afford it a lot of times,” Harbaugh said in Arizona — and they’re probably still eyeing a draft pick at guard in late April.

“You’re also building for the long term,” Harbaugh noted.

That could happen as high as the Giants’ No. 5 overall pick.

Trevor Sikkema, a leading NFL Draft analyst and co-host of the NFL Stock Exchange podcast, said this week on Talkin’ Ball with Pat Leonard that he could see the Giants picking Utah offensive tackle Spencer Fano in the first round.

“If there was a top tier offensive lineman in this draft that I thought was a top 5 player in this class, I’d be taking him at No. 5,” Sikkema said. “The closest one I have to that is Spencer Fano, an offensive tackle but honestly a versatile offensive lineman who I think can play all five positions at a high level in the NFL.

“He really upgrades this offensive line,” Sikkema added. “Maybe short term it’s at offensive guard, and then when Jermaine Eluemunor[‘s contract is up] … you might be able to kick Spencer Fano out to that right tackle spot where he’s very comfortable.”

At the same time, Sikkema noted that the Giants may have players with higher grades on their board than Fano at that spot. So they could go with the bigger need on the offensive line, maybe even in a trade down.

Or they could take the highest graded player on their board. Could that be Notre Dame running back Jeremyiah Love?

It’s possible that Harbaugh is rolling the dice on a right guard competition between Faalele, Patrick, Evan Neal, Josh Ezeudu and Aaron Stinnie, and reserving that No. 5 overall pick on a playmaker to carry the ball behind them.

The coach wants an offense that can attack physically upfront and also spread out down the field. But it’s no secret that he’d love to get big on the line of scrimmage — as he did with Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry, Faalele and company in Baltimore — and impose the Giants’ will.

“You want to put defenses in conflict as much as you can,” Harbaugh said. “You want to be able to get big, and if they respond accordingly, you want to be able to play fast with your big guys or maybe get lighter. Or you set up schemes where if they get too light, then you get bully on them, you come after them. You see how the Rams play, for instance.”

All of this is to say the Giants shouldn’t be finished throwing assets at this offensive line. But if Faalele can serve as a jumbo, backup guard who helps Jaxson Dart and the Giants plow into the end zone on the goal line, it’s possible they just added one more piece to chip away at being a more competitive and formidable team on their front five.