The Giants called it quits on former head coach Brian Daboll midway through the season after the team got off to a dreadful 2-8 start. Banking on a rookie quarterback to save his job didn’t go as planned when the combined duo of Jaxson Dart and Malik Nabers lasted just 23 snaps in Dart’s first career start, but that was just one of several issues that plagued the Giants last season. Former Ravens head coach John Harbaugh now finds himself in charge of a roster that boasts several young playmakers, but will his presence be enough to make this a competitive group in his first season?
▶ 2025 New York Giants Stats (Rank)
- Points per game: 22.4 (17th)
- Total yards per game: 333.5 (13th)
- Plays per game: 63.8 (8th)
- Dropbacks per game: 39.9 (14th)
- Dropback EPA per play: 0.1 (12th)
- Designed rush attempts per game: 27.9 (5th)
- Rush EPA per play: -0.04 (12th)
▶ Can Matt Nagy elevate a young offensive core in his first season?
As one would expect, the addition of Harbaugh has been the most talked-about move of the Giants’ offseason, but Harbaugh won’t be tasked with calling offensive plays for this young core of offensive playmakers. Those duties will fall on former Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy, who spent the last three seasons in his role but didn’t have his contract renewed at the end of last season. While Nagy never officially called plays for the Chiefs during his tenure with the team, it’s hard to overlook the fact that the Patrick Mahomes-led Chiefs offense never finished better than 15th in scoring when they switched from Eric Bieniemy to Nagy in 2023. During his time as head coach of the Bears, Nagy’s offense ranked 22nd or worse in scoring in three of his four seasons, but it did finish ninth in scoring during his first season with the team in 2018. The Giants finally waved the white flag on Daniel Jones after a disastrous 2024 campaign and hope Dart can be the man to lead the team for the foreseeable future. Nagy’s tenure with the team will hinge heavily on whether or not he can extract enough out of Dart to prove his status as a franchise quarterback, but his spotty track record brings plenty of doubt entering this season.
▶ Passing Game
QB: Jaxson Dart, Jameis Winston
WR: Malik Nabers, Calvin Austin III
WR: Darius Slayton, Malachi Fields
WR: Darnell Mooney, Isaiah Hodgins
TE: Isaiah Likely, Theo Johnson
When he wasn’t being lauded for the impressive plays he made on the field, Jaxson Dart was being chastised for the reckless plays that led to five concussion evaluations in the 14 games he appeared in last season. Dart’s all-or-nothing style of play led to some exciting moments for the Giants and his fantasy managers last season. He averaged 22.4 fantasy points per game in the 12 games he started, and finished as a top-12 fantasy QB in seven of those starts.
Dart proved to be a valuable fantasy asset on the ground, rushing for 487 yards and nine touchdowns on 86 carries last season, with 37.5 percent of his total fantasy points coming from the ground game. His rushing production helped Dart finish with the 14th-highest EPA/play (0.147) among 34 quarterbacks last season (min. 300 plays), but his struggles as a passer suggest there is plenty of room for improvement this season.
When he opted to throw the football, Dart’s EPA per pass of 0.098 ranked 23rd among the same group of quarterbacks, and on passes of 10 or more air yards, his 42.5 completion percentage ranked 30th. He finished the year with a 2,272-15-5 line through the air and completed just 63.7 percent of his passes overall. While some of these underwhelming totals can be blamed on pass-catchers who were credited with 17 drops on passes thrown by Dart, it’s fair to say players don’t often just show up at the bottom of lists without justifiably shouldering a significant portion of the blame.
The Giants attempted to improve the passing game around Dart this offseason and are optimistic their top receiver will be back in due time to give the aerial attack a real boost. While his rushing prowess undoubtedly provides a nice fantasy floor/ceiling to his profile, last season showed that Dart banking on the ground game could prove unsustainable unless he can learn to better protect himself. He finished as a high-end QB2 in overall fantasy points per game (19.2) and projects similarly heading into this season. That said, a healthy season coupled with significant improvements in the passing game could easily propel Dart into QB1 territory this fantasy season.
The most important weapon in Dart’s arsenal is Malik Nabers, who continues to rehab from a torn ACL he suffered last September. Head coach John Harbaugh recently said Nabers is expected to be back “one way or another” around the time camp starts, which aligns perfectly with the uncertainty Harbaugh has treated this injury with since he first arrived.
When healthy, Nabers has quickly proven to be one of the top young talents in the game. As a rookie, he totaled 109 receptions for 1,204 yards and seven touchdowns, and he posted an 18-271-2 line on 35 targets in little over three full games last season, which included a 9-167-2 performance in Week 2 against the Cowboys. The uncertainty surrounding Nabers’ injury, which has required two surgeries, has created a nice buying opportunity for fantasy managers who are willing to buy the dip on him. Depending on your fantasy platform of choice, Nabers is going anywhere from the WR17 off the board to the WR20, which feels like a nice discount for a player who has finished second at his position in expected fantasy points per game (18.3) and sixth in fantasy points per game (17.4) since he entered the league in 2024.
Things get pretty bleak at receiver after Nabers, so here’s hoping he’s back and healthy as soon as possible. Last offseason, the Giants were quick to re-sign Darius Slayton to a three-year, $36 million contract to ensure they didn’t lose a player who provided them 573 yards and two touchdowns the previous season. The reward? Slayton delivered a 37-538-1 receiving line last season for the Giants on 63 targets and averaged a whopping 7.2 fantasy points per game. He’s averaged just 7.0 FFPG/gm since 2024 and has just two top-24 PPR games on his ledger over that span. With two years left on his deal, the Giants are all but certain to let Slayton continue in his role as a field stretcher who is seldom targeted, but fantasy managers can avoid him this season.
It’s possible the same can be said of Darnell Mooney, whom the Giants acquired via free agency this offseason. On a fantasy points-per-game basis, Mooney has largely underwhelmed his fantasy managers, with his highest points-per-game finish coming in 2021, when he finished as the WR31 with 12.9 FPPG. After going for 64-992-5 with the Falcons in 2024, Mooney fizzled out to 32-443-1 in 15 games last season and was released by the Falcons with one year still remaining on his contract. Mooney could have some value in deeper PPR leagues, but there’s not much to get excited about here.
Rookie third-rounder Malachi Fields brings good size (6'5"/218) to the outside and could at some point push either Slayton or Mooney for snaps this season, but it’s hard to imagine him making much of a fantasy impact this year. Fields is a fifth-year prospect who totaled 800-plus yards in back-to-back seasons at Virginia in 2023 and 2024, but saw his production drop (36-630-5) in his final year when he transferred to Notre Dame and found himself in a more heavy scheme. He still averaged a career-best 17.5 YPR in his lone season with the Irish, but he’ll likely open this season as a depth piece with a chance to contribute in the second half of the season.
The receiver most likely to man the majority of snaps in the slot will be Calvin Austin III, who joined the Giants on a one-year, $4.5 million contract this offseason. A former fourth-round pick of the Steelers back in 2022, Austin has totaled 84 career receptions for 1,100 yards and eight touchdowns. Austin has never totaled more than 548 receiving yards in a season and will have to battle for slot work with tight end Isaiah Likely, who has played 47.9 percent of his snaps from the slot and has two seasons with a slot rate over 50 percent. Like many Giants receivers not named Malik Nabers, Austin is another receiver who can be faded in fantasy drafts.
If things go according to plan for Harbaugh and the Giants, Isaiah Likely figures to be in for a breakout campaign in 2026. The four-year vet followed Harbaugh from the Ravens to Big Blue this offseason and finally has a chance to get out from under Mark Andrews’ shadow.
Likely totaled back-to-back 400-plus yard seasons with the Ravens in 2023 and 2024, but has averaged just 17.4 routes run per game for his career. To put that into perspective, the per-game average for tight ends who ranked in the top 20 in total routes last season was 28.8. Likely should have no trouble surpassing his single-season bests now that he finds himself in a full-time starting role, and he’s reportedly been a “favorite target” of Jaxson Dart’s this spring. It’s too early to confidently project Likely as a TE1, but he has the upside to insert himself into the top-12 of the group, or better, if his enhanced role is as expected.
▶ Running Game
RB: Cam Skattebo, Tyrone Tracy Jr., Devin Singletary
OL (L-R) Andrew Thomas, Jon Runyan, John Michael Schmitz Jr., Francis Mauigoa, Jermaine Eluemunor
Second-year running back Cam Skattebo is hoping to return to form after a dislocated ankle and fractured tibia he suffered in Week 8 ruined what was shaping up to be a strong rookie campaign. In eight games, Skattebo totaled 101-410-5 on the ground while adding another 24-207-2 through the air, and was on a 17-game pace to see 68 targets, which would have ranked eighth-highest among running backs last season. Skattebo finished as a top-24 PPR back or higher in all but one game last season and had three finishes inside the top 12.
Removing a Week 1 game against the Commanders, where he saw only two carries, and a Week 8 game against the Eagles, where he was injured after only five opportunities, Skattebo averaged a healthy 20.7 opportunities per game when the Giants turned the starting role over to him, which was good for the seventh-highest opps/gm average among all running backs. His hard-running style placed him in the top 10 in missed-tackle forced rate (21.8 percent) on rush attempts, and he converted four of his eight rush attempts inside the opponent’s five-yard line into scores.
The early reports on Skattebo’s injury have been encouraging, with recent reports saying he should be ready to go early in camp. It was also reported in June that he was taking most of the first-team reps in minicamp. Coach Harbaugh also said earlier this month that Skattebo was a “top-tier back, and he’s planning on playing that way this year.” Assuming he operates as the unquestioned RB1, Skattebo will start the year as a high-end RB2 with a chance to offer much more if his touches are similar to what we saw last year.
Third-year running back Tyrone Tracy will challenge Skattebo for touches this season, but if this year is anything like last season, it’s hard to imagine Tracy having enough of a role that’s reliable for fantasy purposes. In six games played with Skattebo last season, Tracy averaged 10.2 opportunities per game and 37.8 yards from scrimmage, but in nine games without Skattebo, those numbers jumped to 18.0 opps/gm and 89.0 YFS/gm to go along with 13.8 fantasy points per game. In his two seasons as a pro, Tracy has totaled 2,151 yards and 10 touchdowns and is one of 27 running backs to total 400-plus touches since 2024.
Even if Tracy doesn’t have standalone value with Skattebo active, he should be safely locked into the RB2 role for the Giants and has strong handcuff appeal, especially as a reliable pass-catcher. Veteran Devin Singletary should again serve as the Giants’ RB3 this season, but he’s managed just seven top-24 PPR performances since joining them in 2024 to go along with 8.6 opportunities per game.
▶ 2026 New York Giants Win Total
DraftKings Over/Under: 7.5
Pick: Under (-110)
Can the perceived Harbaugh bump really push a team that finished 4-13 last season to a fringe .500 team in his first year at the helm? Playing in a tough NFC East, where their 7.5 projected win total ties Washington for last, suggests the books aren’t too high on them. When factoring in their opponents’ forecasted win totals on Sharp Football Analysis, the Giants are left facing the ninth-toughest schedule in the league. While it’s possible the Giants have a solid group of playmakers up top with Dart, Skattebo, and Nabers, this roster still feels very thin as far as overall depth is concerned. On the defensive side of the ball, the Giants also allowed the seventh-most points per game (25.8) and the fifth-most yards per game (359.5), but are hopeful that some defensive additions, including No. 5 overall pick Arvell Reese at EDGE, can help them turn a corner. While there’s plenty of reason to believe the Giants can improve on last year’s four-win season, picking them to double their win total feels a bit premature here.
Note: All fantasy numbers are based on full-PPR scoring. Stats and information courtesy of PFF.com, RotoViz.com, ProFootballReference.com, NextGenStats.NFL.com, 4For4.com, FantasyPoints.com and RBSDM.com.
