Geno Smith served as Russell Wilson’s backup for two seasons in Seattle. Could Wilson be Smith’s backup with the Jets?
Zack Rosenblatt of TheAthletic.com reports that Wilson visited the Jets on Monday night and is an option for the backup job to Smith.
Smith, per Rosenblatt, was presented with various options for the No. 2 job and was “excited” about the prospect of having Wilson in the quarterbacks room. Wilson and the Jets spoke before the draft and scheduled his free agent visit.
Wilson, 37, has received no other known interest since becoming a free agent in March.
He said at the end of last season that he intended to continue his NFL career.
Wilson went 0-3 as a starter for the Giants in New York before being benched in favor of rookie Jaxson Dart. Wilson completed 58 percent of his passes for 831 yards with three touchdowns and three interceptions in 2025.
In his 14-year career, Wilson has a 121-80-1 record with 46,966 yards, 353 touchdowns and 114 interceptions. He has made the Pro Bowl 10 times. He led the Seahawks to a victory in Super Bowl XLVIII.
Giants Clips
Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor is being treated for pancreatitis, TMZ Sports reports. Pancreatitis is inflammation of the pancreas.
Taylor, 67, was transported to the emergency room at a New Jersey medical facility last week.
An attorney for Taylor announced Monday that Taylor was in the hospital with a non-life-threatening stomach issue. Attorney Mark Eiglarsh said in a statement that doctors have not determined a discharge date, but Taylor is showing signs of improvement.
Taylor played for the Giants from 1981-93, winning two Super Bowl rings. The team retired his No. 56, and he earned induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1999.
Trade chatter swirled around Kayvon Thibodeaux leading up to and during the draft, but no deal came together and the edge rusher remains with the Giants.
The in-draft chatter came ahead of the second round last Friday when there was a report that the Giants and Saints had discussed a deal. Giants General Manager Joe Schoen said that the team had “not had any conversations” about trading Thibodeaux that day, but another report indicates that there were some conversations.
Dan Duggan of TheAthletic.com reports that the Giants were looking for a second-round pick in return for moving Thibodeaux while the Saints’ best offer was believed to be a fourth-rounder. New Orleans ultimately traded a fifth-round pick to the Raiders for Tyree Wilson in order to address their desire for help on the edge.
The Giants took Arvell Reese with the fifth overall pick and they’ve faced questions about how they’ll line up on defense with Reese, Thibodeaux, Brian Burns and Abdul Carter all on the roster. With Thibodeaux staying put, that will be something for the team to work out over the coming months.
The Giants traded away their best defensive tackle when they sent Dexter Lawrence to Cincinnati, but they’re confident they’ll be in good shape in the middle of their defensive line when the season starts.
Giants coach John Harbaugh said after the draft that he’s confident the defensive tackle position will be deeper when the season starts than it is right now.
“Defensive tackle, we’re going to be talking about that. That’s still something we’ve got to continue to address. We’re not finished with that at all,” Harbaugh said.
General Manager Joe Schoen agreed.
“We’ve been in contact with several agents of veteran defensive tackles, so we’ll continue to keep those communications open,” Schoen said.
The Giants did draft one defensive tackle, Bobby Jamison-Travis, in the sixth round. They view him as better than a sixth-round prospect.
“We were a little surprised he was still there,” Harbaugh said of Jamison-Travis. “He’s a guy we hoped would still be there. We had a couple guys and he was still standing. We love the way he plays. He plays the way we like to play. He plays square, he locks out, he sheds blocks, he’s a very fundamentally sound guy. He’ll be a part of it, and then we get a couple vets going forward.”
The Giants aren’t going to find a defensive tackle as good as Lawrence between now and the start of the season, but they think they can keep getting better at the position.
With the 10th overall pick acquired from the Bengals in the Dexter Lawrence trade, the Giants selected tackle Francis Mauioga. There’s a chance he wouldn’t have been available.
Via Jori Epstein of Yahoo Sports, two NFC teams tried to trade up to No. 9 with the Browns.
Cleveland had moved down from No. 6 to No. 9, in a trade that allowed the Chiefs to move up and select cornerback Mansoor Delane.
The Browns didn’t get an offer that made them abandon their chance to take tackle Spencer Fano in the ninth spot, but the effort made by the unnamed NFC teams underscores the risk of acquiring a pick before it’s on the clock. Two NFC teams were speculating on who the Giants planned to select, and they were trying to beat them to him.
Just like the Eagles did, when jumping from No. 23 to No. 20, one spot in front of the Steelers, for receiver Makai Lemon.
That’s how the draft works. Teams want who they want, and they’ll often move up to get him before someone else can. In the end, the Giants didn’t get leapfrogged. But two other teams in their conference tried.
Lawrence Taylor is in the hospital with a stomach issue that appears non-life-threatening, according to a representative of the Hall of Fame linebacker.
Attorney Mark Eiglarsh said in a statement released Monday that Taylor has spent a week in the hospital with no discharge date determined. Eiglarsh said Taylor remains under medical observation and is showing signs of improvement.
“Lawrence asks that I convey his sincere gratitude to everyone who has been thinking of him and keeping him in their prayers during this challenging time,” Eiglarsh said, via the Associated Press.
Taylor, 67, won two Super Bowl rings and is an eight-time All-Pro and a one-time NFL MVP. He played for the Giants from 1981-93, and they retired his No. 56.
Taylor earned induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1999.
The Giants took a break from welcoming their draft class by parting ways with a more seasoned member of the roster.
Defensive lineman DeMarvin Leal was released over the weekend. Leal had signed a futures deal with the Giants earlier in the offseason.
Leal was a 2022 third-round pick of the Steelers and was released in January 2026. He had 35 tackles and a sack in 32 games for Pittsburgh.
The Giants drafted defensive tackle Bobby Jamison-Travis in the sixth round and they signed Sam Roberts and Marlon Tuipulotu as free agents. Roy Robertson-Harris, Darius Alexander and Elijah Chatman are also in the mix on the team’s defensive line.
The NFL has no appetite to take any action as it relates to Steve Tisch. From the league’s perspective, Tisch transferring his ownership interest apparently ended the question of whether his ties to Jeffrey Epstein require action.
But Tisch remains with the team. Beyond having a title (chairman of the board) that may or may not come with any real power, he’s present. He was present in the draft room, front and center and with his clapping hands flashing a not-so-subtle middle finger to anyone who thinks his connection to Epstein requires his ouster.
Really, how different are things now for Tisch? He did with the equity what his estate would have done — it went to his kids. And he’s still doing what he would have been doing if he hadn’t accelerated the transfer of his ownership interest.
Tisch didn’t have control of the franchise before the transfer. He still doesn’t. He was around the team and involved before the transfer. After it, he still is.
It’s only going to change if the folks with the power over the operation do something about it. The team’s board has six members: Tisch, Tisch’s two siblings, John Mara, Chris Mara, and their sister, Susan McDonnell. It’s three to three.
Still, someone surely has the power to do what needs to be done. The ownership transfer is cosmetic. It’s a distinction without a difference. A hollow effort to create the impression that the Epstein entanglement had a tangible consequence.
It’s not nearly enough. As a high-level source with another team told PFT in late February, “Steve has to go.”
They’ve created the impression he’s gone, because he technically no longer holds personally an ownership interest in the franchise. They hoped that would end the issue.
Maybe it would have, if Tisch hadn’t been in the draft room this weekend. Or if, at a minimum, he had stayed out of view of the camera that had been installed there.
As it stands, nothing has really changed. And nothing is going to happen, unless and until ownership feels sufficient internal or external pressure to do it.
Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers offered some real-time reactions to the team’s first-round picks on Thursday night and they led to a conversation with head coach John Harbaugh.
Nabers appeared on a Bleacher Report livestream with Packers edge rusher Micah Parsons and said he loved fifth overall pick Arvell Reese as a player but wondered “where does he play” on a team that already has Brian Burns, Abdul Carter and Kayvon Thibodeaux on the edge. The Giants took offensive lineman Francis Mauigoa with the 10th pick and the Cowboys traded up to take safety Caleb Downs one pick later.
“I’d rather get him than play against him,” Nabers said of Downs.
On Saturday, Harbaugh said he had a “great conversation” with Nabers and that the wide receiver was “fired up and happy” about the team’s moves. He also said he welcomed the conversation about Reese because he knows that Nabers isn’t going to be the only one with questions about how the Giants plan to fit him into their defense.
“It’s like he said, I was curious about how you were going to use him,” Harbaugh said, via a transcript from the team. “I showed him how we’re going to use him. He is fired up about it. I appreciate it. You know, one thing that you’ll kind of probably see as we go here, we don’t get too worried about stuff. You know, as long as a person’s heart is in the right place, as long as the person really cares, a player, a coach, or anybody, you really want what’s best for everybody, you’re coming from -- he has a good heart and a good place, you know, say what you think. Put it out there. We talk all the time about confronting everything that has to do with our football. So Malik wants to know how we’re going to use our first round pick, I want to show him. I want to explain it to him. The fact that he says it publicly, who cares? I know fans are probably thinking the same thing. It was the same question that everybody is going to have, and we knew that, because we knew how kind of Arvell was perceived.”
The Giants will see Downs twice a year as long as he’s in Dallas and that may not put a smile on Nabers’s face, but it will be easier to deal with any disappointment if Reese and Mauigoa blossom into the kind of players the Giants believe they can be.
Giants coach John Harbaugh met with Odell Beckham Jr. at the NFL owners meetings in Scottsdale, Arizona, last month. On Monday, the Giants had the free agent wide receiver at their team facility for a physical.
Beckham could soon be back in the league.
“We worked him out,” Harbaugh said Saturday, via Pat Leonard of the New York Daily News. “He looked good. We just have to continue conversations. Talking with him Tuesday night. If we do anything, it has to make sense for the Giants. It has to make sense for him.
“We’re not decided on that yet. He’s not decided on that yet. Have to see where it is.”
Harbaugh coached Beckham in 2023 with the Ravens, and the two have remained close.
Beckham was last on a team in 2024, appearing in nine games for the Dolphins and making nine catches for 55 yards.
The Giants drafted Beckham 12th overall in 2014, and he played in New York until the Giants traded him to the Browns ahead of the 2019 season. He signed with the Rams after being waived during the 2021 season and tore his ACL while helping Los Angeles to a Super Bowl win.
Beckham joined the Ravens after sitting out 2022.
He has played 23 of a possible 68 games in the past four seasons.
