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 Clips
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.
Ideally, the Giants would have acquired the Bengals’ first-round pick in exchange for defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence when the pick was on the clock. That would have prevented the Giants from being potentially leapfrogged by a team that guessed right as to the player the Giants may have been eyeballing at No. 10.
That ultimately didn’t happen. Yes, the Browns traded down to No. 9 and took a tackle right before the Giants picked a player at the same position. And the Giants will never admit they would have taken Spencer Fano (whom the Browns drafted) instead of Francis Mauioga.
Still, the best way to do the Dexter deal would have been to do it when the 10th pick was on the clock.
Based on conversations with multiple league sources, it’s believed that the failed Maxx Crosby trade was a significant factor in getting the deal done early. As one source put it, both teams were concerned about Lawrence passing a physical. Pre-Crosby, that would have been less of a concern.
Consider the trade that sent receiver A.J. Brown from the Titans to the Eagles during the 2022 draft. The trade happened with Philly’s pick on the clock, preventing the Titans from being leapfrogged by a team that may have concluded they’d use the selection to draft Brown’s replacement. (The fact that receiver Treylon Burks didn’t pan out doesn’t matter. Plenty of players taken in round one don’t pan out, even if it’s become frowned upon to mention that reality, especially while the picks are being made.)
The Brown trade may not have happened that way, post-Crosby. While teams have access to the full scope of medical records (including the player’s exit physical from the prior season), all trades are done pending a physical. That’s what happened on Friday, with the Vikings and Eagles reaching a deal as to defensive end Jonathan Greenard and managing to keep it quiet until the physical was passed.
The stakes were much higher for Dexter Lawrence, the Bengals, and the Giants. Yes, there would have been a way to try to do it quietly, but it would have been difficult to pull it off. The decision was made to get it done and move on, even if every other team had five days to consider which player(s) the Giants were targeting at pick No. 10 — and possibly to cut the line in front of them. (Like the Eagles did in snatching receiver Makai Lemon from the Steelers on Thursday night.)
Lawrence and the Bengals also needed to work out a new contract. But the Eagles did that four years ago with Brown, and they also pulled it off on Friday with Greenard.
In the end, both the physical and the contract made it prudent for all involved to get the Dexter Lawrence deal done early.
That doesn’t mean no player will ever be traded for a pick that is currently on the clock. But those deals require clear contingency plans in the event the player doesn’t pass the physical. With the pick traded for the player already used, the team that lost both the player and its pick will need to get something else in return.
Even with the risk of having the player they planned to take at No. 10 plucked away by a team that could have traded up to No. 9, the move was still regarded as a win for the Giants. They knew Lawrence wasn’t happy. They believed his mindset manifested itself in his performance last season. And so they found an offramp, avoided paying him $20 million this year, and emerged with a top-10 pick who will be happy at least for the first few years of his career — even if their first choice at No. 10 would have become the player taken at No. 9.
The Giants traded back into the third round, picking up the 74th overall selection from the Browns.
New York added a receiver with the pick, choosing Malachi Fields out of Notre Dame.
Fields spent the 2025 season at Notre Dame after playing four years at Virginia. In his final collegiate season, he recorded 36 receptions for 630 yards with five touchdowns. He previously caught 55 passes for 808 yards with five TDs for Virginia in 2024. He also had 58 catches for 811 yards with five TDs in 2023.
The Giants sent No. 105 and No. 145 in this year’s draft, along with a 2027 fourth-round pick, to the Browns in exchange for No. 74.
Former Giants co-owner Steve Tisch, who transferred his equity in the team to a trust for his children, was front and center in the team’s draft room on the first two nights of the 2026 NFL draft.
G.M. Joe Schoen was asked about Tisch’s presence on Friday night.
“He’s the chairman of the team, and he’s in the draft room like he is every year,” Schoen told reporters, via Pat Leonard of the New York Daily News.
The NFL has justified not scrutinizing his ties to Jeffrey Epstein in part by pointing out that Tisch is no longer an owner. Clearly, he’s still involved with the organization.
Which means that the Giants don’t care — and the league doesn’t care — about Tisch’s ties to Epstein. And about whatever it was Tisch was trying to do with the women Epstein may have funneled to him.
The emails are what they are. The league has opted to look the other way, and not to subject Tisch to the same kind of probe that a player would possibly endure.
Which is no surprise, given that many in power are simply trying to run out the clock on something that should be a much bigger deal than it has been. (Including, unfortunately, the leader of the free world.)
Giants General Manager Joe Schoen strongly denied a report concerning trade talks involving edge rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux.
A report shortly before the start of the the second round of the draft indicated that the Giants were talking to the Saints and others about a trade that would move Thibodeaux off of the Giants’ roster. Schoen said on Friday night that there was no validity to that report.
“We have not had any conversations about Kayvon Thibodeaux today,” Schoen said, via multiple reporters. “That’s not true.”
Thibodeaux is heading into the final year of his contract and Thursday night’s addition of Arvell Reese gives the Giants a lot of options off the edge, so a Thibodeaux trade seemed like a possible way to address other needs. It does not look like such a move is on the horizon, however.
Steve Tisch is trolling the NFL. And/or the NFL is trolling the rest of us.
Tisch, who recently transferred his ownership interest in the Giants to a trust for his children, was in the Giants’ draft room last night. And he was back tonight.
Front and center, for the perfunctory group applause following the making of a pick.
Tisch appeared in the latest batch of Epstein files, through emails sent to and from disgraced (and deceased) sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The language was pervy and creepy, and reporting from multiple outlets raised fair questions as to whether Tisch was trading “help” for unrelated favors through dates arranged by Epstein. The league, by all appearances, did not investigate Tisch.
The league has circled the wagons and/or buried its head in the sand. Last month, Commissioner Roger Goodell pointed out that Tisch is no longer an owner when justifying the decision not to scrutinize him.
If the fact that he’s not an owner has helped insulate him from scrutiny, he should scram. Vamoose. Get lost.
He hasn’t; beyond being in the draft room, he’s still reportedly the chairman of the board. And there’s no indication the league will make him clear out for good.
It’s no surprise. Because even though the league insists that owners are held to a higher standard than players, the NFL has proven repeatedly that the bar for the billionaires is far lower.
Cornerback Colton Hood was one of two players in attendance for the first round of the draft who did not get picked, but he didn’t have to wait long to hear his name called in the second round.
The Giants selected Hood with the 37th overall pick. Hood did not return to the draft for the second round, but defensive tackle Kayden McDonald did and went to the Texans one pick before Hood came off the board.
Hood played at Auburn and Colorado before landing at Tennessee for the 2025 season. He had 50 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss and an interception return for a touchdown for the Volunteers.
The Giants picked up linebacker Arvell Reese and offensive lineman Francis Mauigoa in the first round. They do not have any more picks on Friday, but have five picks on the final day.
The Giants are . . . or are not trading Kayvon Thibodeaux.
Less than 24 hours after a report that the Giants don’t intend to trade the defensive end, Jordan Schultz of The Schultz Report reports that the team is engaging in trade conversations about Thibodeaux. The Saints are among the teams showing strong interest, per Schultz.
Speculation about a deal involving Thibodeaux only increased after the Giants selected Arvell Reese with the fifth overall pick on Thursday night.
The Giants also have Brian Burns and 2025 first-rounder Abdul Carter at edge rusher.
Thibodeaux finished with two sacks last season, playing only 10 games due to a shoulder injury. It was the third time in his four NFL seasons that he has missed time with an injury.
Thibodeaux, 25, has 23.5 sacks in four seasons, including 11.5 in 2023.
