The New York Giants will “evaluate all options, including looking at Fernando Mendoza before they make a decision on how they are going to proceed if they have the [No. 1] pick,” according to a Sunday report from NFL Insider Ian Rapoport.
Rapoport never mentioned Giants GM Joe Schoen, but the NFL Network screen said this while Rapoport was speaking:
“GM Joe Schoen likely to remain with team for draft.”
Valentine’s View
Evaluating Mendoza, the Heisman Trophy-winning Indiana quarterback, is absolutely what the Giants are supposed to do. Completely ignoring Mendoza, or any quarterback in the 2026 draft class, would be a dereliction of duty by the Giants’ scouting staff and front office.
My view, already expressed a number of times, is that there is no reason for the Giants — no matter who the GM and head coach are — not to move forward with Dart.
That doesn’t mean the organization should not do its due diligence. I strongly believe the best play for the Giants is to stick with Dart and trade the No. 1 pick if they get it. I believe in Dart’s future. I also believe the Giants will get far more in terms of trade value for the No. 1 pick than they would in return for Dart.
At the very least, the Giants need to have a grade on and projection for Mendoza. I don’t believe drafting Mendoza and trading Dart would be the right play, but that doesn’t mean a new GM/coach combination would think the same way.
As for Schoen, I wrote Sunday morning that I think his future remains up in the air. The “remain with team for draft” wording is ambiguous.
Teams generally don’t keep a GM through the draft and then fire him. The Carolina Panthers did that to Dave Gettleman after he had conducted their 2017 draft, in which he selected Christian McCaffrey, Curtis Samuel, Taylor Moton and Harrison Butker.
Other examples of general managers fired after conducting the draft are John Dorsey by Kansas City in 2017 and Mike Maccagnan by the New York Jets in 2019.
That is yet another odd wrinkle to think about.
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