NFL mock draft: 4 prospects NY Giants could miss out on thanks to Week 17 win

The New York Giants can’t even tank right. As Big Blue slogged toward the end of one of the most dismal seasons in franchise history, there were at least two lights at the end of the tunnel: All that losing had put the team in the driver’s seat for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, and with Daniel Jones and his contract finally off the books, next spring would represent a golden opportunity for the sort of hard reset it’s needed for years. All they had to do was just lose two more games against playoff hopefuls in the Indianapolis Colts and Philadelphia Eagles.

But these are the Giants we’re talking about, so of course they immediately screwed it up. Drew Lock rose from the dead to put together quite possibly the best game of his NFL career, throwing for 309 yards and four touchdowns to lead New York to an improbable win over the Colts. The team now sits at 3-13, dropping from first in next year’s draft all the way down to fourth — an outcome that not even the team’s own head coach can pretend to be happy about.

And it’s not hard to see why. Picking first, the entire draft would have to run through the Giants: New York could either have their choice of quarterback, or, if no one in this year’s class caught their eye, trade down to another QB-needy team in exchange for a haul of draft picks. Now, they find themselves in a familiar position: bad but not quite bad enough, needing everything to break right just to have a chance at landing a new face of the franchise.

Sure, the Giants need a quarterback more than anything else. But the team also needs talent just about everywhere, and this is shaping up to be a relatively weak QB class. Hunter represented the perfect backup plan, a player who could help at both cornerback and even take some pressure off Malik Nabers at wide receiver (or who could at least have offered New York some leverage to convince teams that they wouldn’t mind staying a No. 1 rather than trading down).

Barring something miraculous in Week 18, though, you can pretty much kiss a chance at Hunter goodbye. The New England Patriots currently project to pick first in next year’s draft, and it’s hard to see them passing on Hunter given that they already have their QB of the future and need a talent infusion at both receiver and corner. And if the Pats don’t take the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, someone else in the top three will.

It seemed unlikely that Ward would have been the Giants’ first choice at quarterback, due to concerns about his size and the fact that his play style isn’t something that the typically staid John Mara has gone for (much to his team’s detriment). Picking fourth, though, it’s unlikely that New York will have the chance to draft Ward even if it has the former Miami star second on its QB big board — unless the team wants to mortgage its future to trade up to second or third overall. The Giants are currently slated to pick behind the QB-needy Tennessee Titans and Cleveland Browns, and teams like the Las Vegas Raiders seem to be itching to trade up with someone like the Patriots.

Outside of Hunter and the quarterbacks, you could make the argument that no one in this draft was a better fit for New York than Johnson, despite the fact that his final season at Michigan was cut short due to injury. This isn’t a great draft for offensive linemen, making any of the top tackles a bit of a reach inside the top five. Johnson, however, was the obvious best player available choice if Hunter was off the board, a lockdown cornerback for a team that needs all the help it can get in the secondary.

But after beating the Colts, the Giants might not even get the chance. What if New England takes Hunter, and the Browns opt against taking a QB this early with Deshaun Watson still on the books? A Cleveland team in need of help just about everywhere could very well pivot to the defensive side of the ball and leave the Giants scrambling for options.

This is by far the biggest blow. All signs had been pointing to Sanders to the Giants, the best pocket passer in this draft landing in the biggest media market in the country. Unless New York is willing to do whatever it takes to move back up to the top spot, though, it’s hard to see any universe in which the Colorado star falls past No. 2 overall at the absolute worst. And even if Joe Schoen (or whoever is running the team by the time the spring rolls around) does want to roll the dice and trade up, a team like the Raiders is just as motivated and boasts an even deeper war chest of assets. If Sanders goes elsewhere and blossoms into a star, expect Drew Lock to become public enemy No. 1 in the tristate area.