While New York Giants ownership has set the pressure-packed expectations on general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll to figure out how to turn the roster around and be competitive in 2025, there will always be a few right and wrong ways to do it. 

The Giants’ on-field product was a disgrace this past season. Injuries marred the team, and often looked incredibly outmatched in some games due to poor quarterback play and woeful protection on the offensive line. 

Most would agree to blame the front office heads for assembling the lackluster roster and the coaching for not properly preparing the locker room so that the players can equally spar with the best opponents in the NFL. 

The good news for the Schoen and Daboll regime is that they will have plenty of options, including draft and cap space flexibility, to maneuver their last-ditch effort to retool the roster and save their jobs. 

SNY NFL writer Lucas Hutcherson offered a couple of bold predictions that the Giants could consider this offseason: investigating a potential trade for stud left Andrew Thomas and using one valuable mid-round draft selection to bring in a new kicker to replace the veteran Graham Gano. 

“Obviously, ensuring that the offensive line is solid in 2025 will be an organizational priority, and letting a talented player like Thomas leave makes achieving that all the more challenging,” Hutcherson wrote. 

“However, he’s missed 18 of 34 games since signing that extension, so the Giants’ decision-makers may feel reluctant to rely on him to anchor that unit,” Hutcherson said about the starting left tackle who suffered a Lisfranc injury in Week 6.” 

Assuming that the Giants front office is teetering back and forth with arguably the best offensive lineman the team has seen in over a decade is preposterous. In the five years since he was drafted fourth overall, Thomas has become the most indispensable player in the locker room, providing the quarterback with near-perfect pass protection on the edge. 

No more perfect evidence of that came this season in the first six weeks that Thomas was present on the starting front with a new core of blockers. The Giants, albeit having a 2-4 record through that span of contests, were among the best pass-protecting units in the league, holding the sixth-best team pass-block win rate and giving up less than three sacks in all but one game. 

As soon as Thomas went down against the Cincinnati Bengals with a foot injury, his third lower-body injury in as many seasons, all of that magic seemed to fade quickly. With additional losses to the starting five, the Giants fell to 26th in the same area by the end of the 3-14 campaign. 

On an individual level, Thomas has been an absolute stalwart and ranked as high as the No. 1 left tackle in the entire sport with his unforeseen numbers against elite edge rushing talents. 

Per PFF, he hasn’t allowed more than four sacks in a single season under his watch and, in most cases, kept all but a finger off of Daniel Jones in a resume of nearly 2,500 pass blocking snaps. 

Sure, the trend of missing time after the veteran signed a massive five-year, $117 million extension during the 2023 offseason is concerning. 

However, considering shipping away the Giants’ most valuable asset in the hopes of opening up extra financial wiggle room is silly when one considers that Over the Cap estimates the Giants at around $57.26 million in cap space, and that is before any other contract restructures can take effect. 

As for Hutcherson’s thoughts on the kicker situation, yes the Giants have dealt with frustrations regarding the health of their kicking operation behind Graham Gano, who came into New York as one of the most efficient legs in his 15th year as a pro, and haven’t been able to draw much out of short-term replacements while he was out.

Even so, wasting a valuable draft choice, especially if the Giants move up the board in the first round to snag a quarterback, which would require some of those eight total assets, on a novice kicker would be unwise. 

The team will need those remaining picks to secure potential starters or depth players at numerous key positions, such as the secondary and inside linebacker holes. 

The only rational way to address the kicker problem is to search for a cheaper and younger name on the open market that can offer the same reliability that Gano once offered, dating back to his days in Carolina. 

The worst-case scenario is sticking with it, as Gano is under contract for the 2025 season and can have a fresh start. 

However, if any special teams adjustments are made this offseason, they should improve the operation around kicking. The game has changed with the new rules, and the Giants have struggled to gain an advantage with their return and coverage teams. 

And when the dominos are all in line at the start of the new season in September, the hope is that Schoen and Daboll did enough to meet demands and extend their futures beyond the current one-year timeline. 

The first thing that matters in that goal is doing it the right way, a promise they’ve already made that would be tarnished with these far-off ideas.