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New York Giants 2025 NFL Season Preview and Picks: Can Brian Daboll Keep That August Offense Rolling in the Real Games to Save His Job?

Photo of Scott Kacsmar Scott Kacsmar29/08/2025 - 02:09 pm
Malik Nabers #1 of the New York Giants celebrates with Jalin Hyatt #13 of the New York Giants
(Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

It feels really good to write an NFL preview about the New York Giants and not have to talk about them trying to make Daniel Jones work at quarterback. We did that for six long years, and the national crisis is finally over. He’s the Colts’ problem now.

But it’s funny because Friday should have been the Dallas Cowboys’ preview since they finished third in the NFC East in 2024 and the Giants were last. But the Dallas preview went live Thursday just hours before the shocking trade of Micah Parsons to the Packers.

That changes the vibe over the NFC East a bit where we picked Dallas to finish third, which would point to the Giants finishing last. But if Brian Daboll can somehow use his deep quarterback room to foster a good offense without the anchor that was Vanilla Vick, maybe he can save his job for 2026 with Jaxson Dart as his future franchise quarterback.

But as you’ll find out, the 2025 Giants have a brutal schedule, especially early on to the point where Daboll has been among the favorites to be the first coach fired this season. We’ll also talk about what this team did in the preseason because of how historic it was, if that even means anything, and what the best bets are for the 2025 Giants.

Previously on GIANTS: How About That Draft Class?

The nicest thing one could say about the 2024 Giants’ 3-14 season is that at least we didn’t have to watch much of it in prime time as the NFL loves to do to us. The Giants only had three night games, and none of them were after Week 8. Sure, they also played in Dallas on Thanksgiving, but that was a good time to take a nap and digest the turkey dinner.

Par for the course, the Giants were unable to score points as they ranked next to last in raw points and points per drive. Daniel Jones was so underwhelming that the team finally had the sense to ship him out of town to the Vikings after he was 2-8 as a starter.

Tommy DeVito couldn’t recapture his rookie success, and veteran Drew Lock only had that one great game out of nowhere against the Colts. But at least one positive was some of the draft class as wide receiver Malik Nabers lived up to the hype with 109 catches for 1,204 yards and 7 touchdowns. He did drop a couple big plays early in the season that could have made a difference, but he looks ready to have a great career for the team.

Fourth-round rookie Theo Johnson also chipped in 331 receiving yards, and fifth-round running back Tyrone Tracy showed much promise with 1,123 yards from scrimmage. Sure, he didn’t do anything to make fans forget about Saquon Barkley and what he did in Philadelphia, but any realist will know that Barkley never sniffs a 2,000-yard rushing season if he stayed with the Giants in 2024. That’s a simple case of going to a far better team.

But it certainly didn’t look good for general manager Joe Schoen that his $40 million quarterback was a bust and that Barkley was better than ever the moment he got out of New York.

August Football: The Greatest Show on MetLife Turf!?

The Giants are our 29th team preview this summer, and they’re going to get more coverage on their 2025 preseason than anyone. Frankly, they deserve it because not only did the Giants go 3-0, but they also scored at least 31 points in every game, they won by at least two scores in every game, and they had at least 317 net passing yards in every game.

I don’t care if it was preseason. Only five teams in NFL history were able to do this in three straight games, and some of them are extremely notable teams:

  • 1947 Bears: Finished 8-4 with the No. 1 scoring offense (30.3 points per game).
  • 1998 Vikings: Finished 15-1, set the all-time scoring record (556) with a rookie Randy Moss, scored 24+ points every week, lost the NFC Championship Game.
  • 2000 Rams: Finished 10-6 but one of the most prolific offenses in NFL history (Greatest Show on Turf).
  • 2007 Patriots: Finished 16-0, set the all-time scoring record (589) with a veteran Randy Moss, lost the Super Bowl at 18-1.
  • 2020 Bills: Finished 13-3, lost the AFC Championship Game in Kansas City (redundant), and Brian Daboll was the offensive coordinator.

That last point is interesting/amusing, because it means Daboll was running the offense of the last two teams to do this. Granted, these teams did it in games that count, but you can’t deny it’s hard to do this in the NFL three weeks in a row, especially when you’re playing an assortment of backups and not really game-planning.

But it just seemed like everything the Giants tried was working in August as all the quarterbacks had some degree of success. The 2025 Giants averaged 35.7 points and 345.0 passing yards per game in the preseason – easily the highest for any team since at least 2000 in the NFL preseason. It’s not like this is something Daboll routinely does, posting great numbers in August and horrible stats in real games. In the 2024 preseason, the Giants were dead last with 118.7 passing yards per game, 4.00 yards per pass, and they were next to last with 10.0 points per game.

Yes, the truth is we have countless examples that preseason football has no real predictive value on the regular season. In fact, one of the best examples involves the Giants. In the 2019 preseason, Daniel Jones looked absolutely excellent as a rookie. He completed 29-of-34 passes for 416 yards (12.24 YPA), 2 touchdowns, no picks, and a 137.3 passer rating. Obviously, he never came close to being that kind of quarterback in the regular season, though his rookie season had some promise to it.

That means you should probably take a deep breath that Jaxson Dart is going to be amazing after an impressive preseason where the rookie was 32-of-47 for 372 yards (7.9 YPA), 3 touchdowns, and a 113.1 passer rating. He led several scoring drives every week and looked like the best rookie quarterback in the NFL this year.

But let Jones, among others (Blake Bortles in Jacksonville comes to mind too), be a caution flag that you can’t take August at face value for these young quarterbacks.

We’re definitely not saying what the Giants just did is going to carry over at all. In fact, when Russell Wilson takes an abysmal sack and launches a 3rd-and-19 pass well over Malik Nabers’ reach to go three-and-out next Sunday, you’ll already have forgotten everything that happened this month.

But what if Daboll does feel like a new man without the albatross that was Daniel Jones? Last season was already a lost cause by the time they moved him. The backup quarterbacks were lousy. Jameis Winston and Dart are much better options to back up Wilson, who is trying to keep his Hall of Fame legacy alive.

Daboll has the motivation of keeping his job alive in New York, because you can’t keep losing a ton of games in Year 4 and expect things to continue for you. Frankly, Daboll hasn’t been very good after that fluky 6-1 start in 2022 when the Giants won a ton of close games and that helped him win Coach of the Year. He then won a playoff game over the Vikings because that seemed to be the only defense that Jones rose to the occasion against.

But Daboll needed a few years in Buffalo to get things rolling with Josh Allen. Maybe he’s just a slow developer. Either way, it’ll be very interesting to see if August was just a massive fluke or if he’s onto something here. Ditto for Dart whenever we see him.

New York Giants Offseason Review

The Giants have retained their coordinators, and we touched already on the upgraded quarterback room. Let’s look at the other new faces in New York.

Offense: When Do We See Jaxson Dart? Do We in 2025?

Jaxson Dart #6 of the New York Giants
(Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

The Giants are interesting as they really do have three viable options they can start at quarterback. Russell Wilson will get the Week 1 nod, but he’s going to have to show he can play at a consistently good level, something he didn’t do at all in Denver, then he faded down the stretch in Pittsburgh last year when the schedule got really tough.

That’s a bad sign for him lasting long as New York’s starter as you’ll see later with the schedule. The Giants could be a solid offense this year, but that may not be reflected on the scoreboard unless the defense gets much better too.

But Jameis Winston is certainly someone who is fun and can get the ball downfield to Nabers, Darius Slayton, Wan’Dale Robinson, and tight end Theo Johnson. Maybe even tap into some of that speed of 2023 third-round pick Jalin Hyatt if he’s ever going to make an impact. Some are hyped about fourth-round rookie Cam Skattebo joining Tyrone Tracy and Devin Singletary in the backfield, but we’ll see if there’s anything real there.

But it comes down to those quarterbacks. The Giants could “redshirt” Dart if they want. He was QB2 in the draft to the surprise of some, but he’s got a shot to justify that even if the draft range (late first round) he went in is usually fool’s gold.

Why do we keep talking about the quarterbacks? This is almost as amusing as the absurd preseason stats the 2025 Giants had. But after ranking No. 31 on offense last year, the 2025 Giants have returned the same head coach, same offensive coordinator (Mike Kafka), and all 15 of the offensive players who played at least 30% of the snaps for them except for Daniel Jones.

Is that not insane? Even a good offense would usually make some changes somewhere. But the Giants are really rolling out the same group and system with only the most important position changing.

If the preseason is any indication, and if the Giants have success in the real games this year, that’s the biggest indictment ever that Daniel Jones was the problem all along and Daboll was never going to fix him. If Indy can’t do it either, no one can, so they just wasted a few years of Daboll’s time trying.

Defense: Bring Back the Pass Rush

It looked like the Giants were going to be in that mix for drafting Travis Hunter with the No. 3 pick, which could have created some interesting dynamics with him as WR2 behind Nabers and the team’s best corner. But Jacksonville made sure that didn’t happen.

Instead, the Giants used that pick on Abdul Carter, the top pass-rushing prospect in this class from Penn State. I’d say Abdul Carter is a poor man’s Micah Parsons, but even a poor version of Parsons is filthy rich today after his new deal.

But Carter presents an interesting dynamic himself in this defense. The Giants already had a lead pass rusher in Brian Burns, they have a great defensive tackle in Dexter Lawrence, and Kayvon Thibodeaux, their first-round pick from 2022, showed some flashes the last few years. But Carter is set to start over Thibodeaux, so maybe that lights a fire under him to do better.

Hey, maybe Thibodeaux can shine in September, and the Giants can trade him to the Cowboys. I hear they’re in the market for an edge rusher.

But Carter got some negative press this preseason when he reportedly asked to wear the No. 56 jersey that belonged to the legendary Lawrence Taylor of the Giants. Carter will wear No. 51, and this clip of a backup tight end for the Jets blowing him up in August went viral.

Thibodeaux is a good example of how these high draft picks don’t always work out as edge rushers, but Carter will have his shot to prove his worth. It’s hard to deny the Giants are cooking something with Burns, Lawrence, Carter, and Thibodeaux up front.

The pass rush has to win after the marginal contributions from the secondary last year for new coordinator Shane Bowen. He’s back for Year 2 and he’s hoping for more than 5 interceptions from the entire defense. Safety Xavier McKinney left the Giants for the Packers in 2024 and had 8 interceptions himself there. Ouch.

But the secondary can use some help after corner Deonte Banks saw his coverage stats get much worse in Year 2. Corner Paulson Adebo joins the team from the Saints where he was injured in 2024 but very solid in 2023. Safety Jevon Holland joins the team from the Dolphins where he seemed to be trending upwards.

But it’s that pass rush that must win with a lot of resources tied up there.

Best Bets for the 2025 Giants    

If Brian Daboll is truly coaching for his job, and if this team can throw the ball around better and get after the quarterbacks, then doubling that win total to six games and hitting the over 5.5 doesn’t sound that hard, right?

But then you look at the schedule and it starts to make sense why the sportsbooks are giving them a coin flip chance to win six games. Comically enough, the Cowboys could end up as one of the worst teams the Giants have to play, and getting them in Week 2 after this Parsons blow might actually be a great thing.

But just look at this schedule for the Giants:

  • Starts in Washington against a new MVP candidate in Jayden Daniels.
  • After Dallas, the Giants are hosting the Chiefs, who could be looking hard for a win after starting with the Chargers and Eagles.
  • They host the Chargers in Week 4, a very talented quarterback and top-ranked scoring defense.
  • Week 5 is the first game they should probably be favored in New Orleans against Spencer Rattler.
  • Then it’s a short week before hosting the Eagles on Thursday Night Football.
  • That’s followed by road trips to Denver and Philly, tough matchups against balanced teams.
  • Week 9 is hosting San Francisco, a team that should have better wide receiver health by then.
  • Week 10 is in Chicago where Ben Johnson could be cooking up a great offense too.
  • The Packers come to New York with Micah Parsons in Week 11.
  • Week 12 is in Detroit, another contender for the Super Bowl.
  • Week 13 is a Monday night against the Patriots, who made a great hire in Mike Vrabel.
  • That’s the first 13 games before the late bye week, and outside of the Saints, I’m not sure the Giants will be favored in any of those games.
  • They get the Commanders and Vikings after the bye, so maybe a shot for an upset there.
  • Week 17 is at Las Vegas, so that’s closer to a team on their level that they can beat.
  • Hosting the Cowboys in Week 18, and by then the Cowboys won’t likely care about this season, so a chance for a cheap win.

It’s definitely a tough schedule, but at the end of the day, I’m going to stick with the belief that Jones was the problem, and Daboll will get better offensive results this year. It won’t be enough to entertain a playoff run, but I’ll take the Giants for over 5.5 wins.

If this team does somehow turn into a scoring juggernaut that cements Wilson’s Hall of Fame bust, then I guess we’ll look back at that training camp and preseason and wonder what got into Daboll in 2025.

But maybe it’s just a matter of Daniel Jones getting out of the building for good.

  • NFL Pick: New York Giants over 5.5 wins (-110) at FanDuel

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Photo of Scott Kacsmar Scott Kacsmar29/08/2025 - 02:09 pm