The No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft has been a quarterback in nine of the past 11 years. As of this writing, the New York Giants are still in position to have the No. 1 pick in 2026. Do they need a quarterback, though?
A surprising number of people on X think the Giants should stay put if they get the No. 1 pick, trade Jaxson Dart, and draft Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza rather than trading down. You can make the case considering that after winning two of his first three starts Dart hasn’t won another, that the hits he takes and his regular visits to the blue tent portend low longevity, and that his current head coach didn’t even have confidence in him to win Sunday’s game against the Vikings.
Dart has looked really good in a variety of advanced metrics until recently, but football is about scoring points. After a two-week stretch in which the Dart-led Giants hung 34 and 32 points on the Eagles and Broncos, two of the best defensive teams in the league, the Giants have scored 20, 24, 20, 15, 21, and 13 points in Dart’s starts, i.e., 19 points per game. That’s worse than all but five other teams’ season scoring average.
Is it Dart, or is it the weapons he has to work with? In support of the latter hypothesis, as of a month ago he had faced perfect coverage more often than all but a few other QBs while only having a slightly negative EPA on such plays:
And the coup de grace, Dart has lost more EPA because of receiver drops than all but a handful of other quarterbacks:
Reliable receivers (a) know how to get open, and (b) know how to catch the ball. They’re savvy football players rather than just athletes. The Giants for the most part have athletes but not great football players in their receiver group.
I started thinking about this last week watching the amazing Rams-Seahawks game. Players like Puca Nacua and Jaxon Smith-Njigba catch everything. Nacua in particular is a lesson for any GM. Here are his RAS scores:
Nacua was selected in the fifth round (No. 177) in the 2023 draft – the one in which Joe Schoen traded up for the more physically impressive athlete, Jalin Hyatt:
(The mediocre agility grades are interesting in light of Hyatt’s inability to get separation on most of his routes.) To rub salt in the wound, Nacua was still on the board when the Giants selected running back Eric Gray at No. 172. (Never mind the fact that the No.73 – No. 89 pick exchange with the Rams was used by them to select defensive tackle Kobie Turner.) The Giants of course were not the only team to pass multiple times on Nacua; every NFL team did. Even his draft profile was mediocre unless you’re able to note the intriguing bits with hindsight. For example Lance Zierlein of NFL.com rated him in the “Average Backup or Special-Teamer” category, saying:
Nacua is an athletic wideout lacking the twitch or speed to attack NFL man coverage at a successful rate. However, the ball skills and competitive nature he brings to the field give him a fighting chance to make a roster. He might need to be used as a possession receiver operating from the slot, where his ball-winning and size can work in his favor. He’s sneaky talented with the ball in his hands, so jet-sweep work in the pros could be an option. He has a shot to be picked on Day 3. There are make-it elements in the way he plays the game
Smith-Njigba was a different story. It’s entirely possible that Schoen would have drafted him in Round 1 in 2023, but there was a run on wide receivers just before the Giants picked. Still, good NFL receivers such as Josh Downs, Michael Wilson, Dontayvion Wicks, and DeMario Douglas were on the board when the Giants traded up for Hyatt.
There are several components to being a good receiver. A lot of emphasis has been placed on separation in recent years, and rightly so. Here’s a chart about separation and its correlation with targets from several weeks ago:
Unsurprisingly, Smith-Njigba and Nacua are right up there with the best, along with Amon-Ra St.Brown and Garrett Wilson, all of whom get targeted a lot as a result. No Giants receiver comes anywhere near that, although Wan’Dale Robinson is at least in the same quadrant as they are.
Unless you catch the ball, though, separation doesn’t mean much. That’s the part that Giants receivers fall short in. Let’s look at two metrics that matter a lot for actually being successful as a receiver. First, drops – here are the league leaders (lowest drop percentage) among wide receivers and tight ends who are targeted regularly:
Courtesy of Pro FootballFocus
Tight ends as a rule aren’t the greatest pass catchers, but two do make the list (Trey McBride and Dalton Schultz). Unsurprisingly, Nacua and Smith-Njigba are both there; they also happen to lead the NFL in receiving yards. Nacua in particular has an amazing 81.4% reception rate, made more impressive by the fact that he’s been targeted 140 times already. Note also that Rashid Shaheed leads all wide receivers with zero drops this season. He was available at the trade deadline; Seattle got him for fourth and fifth-round picks. Joe Schoen made no moves at the trade deadline. One Giant, Wan’Dale Robinson, clocks in at No.12, with only a 3.7% drop rate. That’s one argument for re-signing him (in addition to his 901 receiving yards), but his size may be an issue, as we’ll get to in a moment.
The other aspect of receiving that receives less attention than it used to is making contested catches. Big receivers who could win “50-50” balls used to be treasured as go-to guys when you needed a first down or were in the red zone. Here are the NFL contested catch leaders this season:
Courtesy of Pro Football Focus
The term “50-50” balls is a bit misleading: There are actually only 20 receivers in the NFL this year who have won contested balls at least 50% of the time. Stefon Diggs, who is only 6-foot, leads the NFL with an amazing 81.8% contested catch rate, albeit in only 11 opportunities. Second among the leaders? Puka Nacua at 75.8%. Smith-Njigba comes in at No.11 with 56.0%.
So I wasn’t imagining things last Thursday – Nacua and Smith-Njigba seem to catch everything because they don’t drop balls and they win battles for contested receptions.
The Giants don’t really have that this year. Wan’Dale (who is 40th in the NFL in contested catch rate) is not terrible considering his size, but in absolute terms definitely not great. Here are the Giants receivers ranked by number of receptions:
Courtesy of Pro Football Focus
All the Giants’ leading receivers except Robinson have terrible drop rates, even their best receiver, Malik Nabers, who had the same problem as a rookie. Theo Johnson is one of those with a big drop problem, but at least he’s won 63.2% of contested catches. Darius Slayton has had a double-digit drop rate every year of his career except 2019 and 2023, and last season was his only one with better than a 60% contested catch rate.
A different look at Robinson tells a somewhat different story. Here are ESPN Analytics tracking metrics on the Giants’ wide receivers using Next Gen Stats. For receivers with at least 30 targets their algorithm judges (relative to expectations) how often receivers are open, how often they make the catch, and how much YAC they get, all expressed as percentiles relative to the rest of the NFL:
Courtesy of ESPN Analytics
The Giants have receivers who can get open, but no one even in the top half of the league in actually catching the ball. Robinson’s low number, given his fairly small number of drops, may indicate that relative to bigger receivers he’s just easier to deflect the ball away from and/or that there are balls he just can’t reach relative to what taller receivers can do.
Here are the NFL’s top five in all three ESPN categories, including both WRs and TEs:
Courtesy of ESPN Analytics
We see that by these standards, Nacua and Smith-Njigba are overall the two best receivers in the league. Stefon Diggs and George Kittle, two other fifth-round draft picks, are up there as well, along with Amon-Ra St.Brown, a 4th round pick, and Kayshon Boutte, a sixth-round pick.
The Giants desperately need a receiver who can give them some semblance of what Nacua and Smith-Njigba are giving the Rams and Seahawks – a reliable target to keep the chains moving while also having the potential to be explosive. As much as the Giants need help on defense, I’d like to see them use that first-round draft pick (ideally after trading down a bit – go Silver and Black!) on a wide receiver. If they decide to go defense instead (and haven’t gotten a second first-round pick in a trade-down), I’d be OK if they went wide receiver at the top of Round 2. Even a later round flyer on a receiver might turn up a gem, as the ESPN chart show….IF they value catching the ball as much as athleticism.
Here’s the consensus WR big board at the moment:
Courtesy of NFL Mock Draft Database
Carnell Tate (6-3) and Jordyn Tyson (6-2) are the two players many people mock to the Giants, but there will be 10 receivers considered Round 1 or 2 values in this draft if they all declare. Which of them fit the bill as good pass catchers? Here are PFF’s top 10 wide receivers overall from the nominal 2026 and 2027 draft classes, ranked by overall receiving grade:
Courtesy of Pro Football Focus
Tate hasn’t dropped a pass all season, and he has an astounding 85.7% contested catch rate and overall 82.8% catch rate. Sign me up. Tyson only has one drop but a less impressive (but still OK) 43.8% contested catch rate and 62.9% overall catch rate. I’d take either of them, but Tate over Tyson. Makai Lemon, No.17 on the big board but PFF’s highest ranked receiver, is only 5-11 but has an amazing 66.7% contested catch rate for his size, with two drops, and an overall 73.1% catch rate.
If the Giants want to go defense in Round 1, there are several receivers they could take early in Round 2 if available who fit the bill of being good at actually catching the ball, e.g., Denzel Boston (6-4, No. 24 on the board, two drops, 76.9% CTC). One player Chris Pflum highlighted in his preview of Alabama-Oklahoma was Germie Bernard (6-1, No. 53 on the big board). Bernard only has one drop this season. His contested catch rate is a modest 35.7%, but against Oklahoma with the game on the line, he did this:
At tight end, Theo Johnson’s not going anywhere, but it’s also not realistic to expect his hands to get much better. Daniel Bellinger is more sure-handed, but since his rookie year injury he’s been an afterthought in the Giants’ offense despite only having three drops in four seasons and a 61.5% contested catch rate. Bellinger is in his contract year. It is not at all clear that the current regime has any interest in bringing him back, although a new head coach and general manager might feel differently.
The Giants would surely not draft a tight end in Round 1 and probably not in Round 2. They don’t have their Round 3 pick due to the Dart trade-up. That leaves Round 4, where the Giants currently stand at No. 102. Tight end is one of the undervalued positions by GMs, so good values are sometimes available on Day 3. Of the top prospects, Max Clare of Ohio State (TE2 and No. 71 on the consensus big board), if he declares, is the one who is the best catcher of the ball, with only two drops this season and a 66.7% contested catch rate.
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