Meet the NY Giants’ 2025 NFL Draft class, player-by-player
Who did the Giants pick in the 2025 NFL Draft? Meet each player from the class, starting with top picks Abdul Carter and Jaxson Dart.
EAST RUTHERFORD – Jason McCourty has never been a defensive coordinator in the NFL, although he’s certainly been around a bunch who schemed up the game in a variety of ways.
The Super Bowl champion played for eight different DCs over 13 seasons in the league, and then on top of that, his post-playing days as an analyst for CBS and ESPN comes with plenty of experience in knowing what works – and unfortunately what does not.
For the purpose of this look at how the Giants should approach this season defensively, given the urgency needed for performance to be reflected in the standings and the assets added to the roster, McCourty accepted the challenge from NorthJersey.com and The Record to offer up his thoughts on the following question:
What would you do if you were Shane Bowen entering his second season as Giants’ DC on the heels of a campaign that produced just three wins for a franchise in desperate need of a dramatic leap forward?
“Simple me, complex you – that would be my philosophy,” McCourty said. “What I mean by that: when it looks complicated to the opposing offense, it has to be easy enough for us to understand our responsibilities. Let’s be as exotic in the secondary as we can. If I was Shane Bowen and I had the front I have this year, with what I’ve added on the back end, the goal should be to make the quarterback hold the ball an extra second. Because if he does, we’re getting home and wrecking the game.”
More than anything, that’s what the Giants can gain from spring workouts and later this summer early in training camp. The focus should be finding out how much the players can handle, and that needs to be one of the priorities for Bowen and his defensive staff, tasked by head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen to turn the clock back on this unit to the dominance of years past.
Talent is talent, and the Giants have that on defense, maybe more than they have in any season since winning Super Bowl XLVI. The secret to success is being willing to explore the best ways to use that personnel no matter the opponent.
“Disguise and creativity, that’s what it should be all about,” added McCourty, the former St. Joseph-Montvale and Rutgers star who played corner and safety in the pros. “Can my guys in the secondary shift and move after the snap? So when the quarterback gets the ball and looks up, the picture is changed and he has to get from what he thought was his first read to his second and third reads. That gives my guys an extra half-second to get home, and if the Giants get that, there are going to be problems for everyone they play.”
By adding Abdul Carter to this defense, the Giants have created an identity with All-Pro Dexter Lawrence, Brian Burns and Kayvon Thibodeaux already up front. This was Carter’s first year playing defensive end and on the edge, so there’s no telling how good he can be with more experience at the position. His combination of athletic traits, explosiveness and potential upside is off the charts.
His presence gives the Giants the makings of a great pass rush, an essential part of the vision when the coaches got involved in the pre-draft evaluation of Carter and how he would fit. The quest to unleash the Big Blue defense might just rest in the creativity of Bowen and the defensive staff, and not just with what Carter represents as a chess piece, but also newcomers Jevon Holland at safety and Paulson Adebo at cornerback on the back end.
And here’s how McCourty sees things playing out with Holland and second-year safety Tyler Nubin teaming up to provide playmaking ability, grit and versatility in the secondary, and what the Giants can do to take advantage of Holland, one of their two prized free agent signings on that side of the ball.
“Say Dru Phillips is our nickel, we have what it looks like to be a single high set with Jevon Holland standing in the middle of the field at safety and you have Phillips down on the slot receiver,” McCourty explained. “But at the snap of the ball, Dru runs out to the middle part of the field and Jevon shifts. Basically, we have the nickel and the safety switch roles, Dru is the safety and Jevon is the nickel, and it’s still Cover 2 for us. For a quarterback, you see single-high safety before the snap and at the snap of the ball it changes. Looks like a complex scheme, but for us, it’s just simply Cover 2.”
Carter’s potential with Burns, Thibodeaux and Lawrence already featured along the defensive front provides tremendous intrigue, especially given his experience as an off-ball linebacker. The Giants were blown away by the possibilities; quite frankly, with Carter, seeing was believing, which is why they selected him No. 3 overall.
“The ability to be multiple was really advantageous for us in terms of evaluating Abdul — actually seeing true application of it,” Giants assistant general manager Brandon Brown said. “It’s not a hypothetical projection, we’ve seen it.”
The Giants went back to the drawing board this offseason with an emphasis on different facets within the defense and piecing together the personnel groupings to bring that to reality: rush, coverage, versatility and creating turnovers, which is something they struggled mightily with last season.
With most of the attention on what the Giants can do up front, there is reason to believe the secondary holds the key to unlocking the dominance of the defense in its entirety.
“Right now, I’d be testing how multiple we can be on the back end,” McCourty said. “What I mean by that is, how many different roles can guys understand position-wise in our defense. This is the time when the players themselves go in the lab and take ownership of this defense. I really think they can be as dominant as they want to be, and this is the time when they can take the chances to prove it.”