Nov 3, 2024; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; New York Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers (1) fights for a first down after a catch as Washington Commanders cornerback Benjamin St-Juste (25) tackles at MetLife Stadium. / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
With the New York Giants hopefully making good use of their bye week for rest and reflection on their first ten games, it feels like a nice time to peel back the curtain at the early returns of their 2024 rookie class.
While it is often hard to judge the impact of any singular rookie player with less than a dozen full games under their belt, the Giants have been seeing some very positive contributions from their crew of six novices, some of them posting efforts that stand atop the rookie pool or their entire position group.
General manager Joe Schoen emphasized the youth factor at several critical positions along the roster during the offseason. He wanted to prioritize spending on the offensive line to better protect quarterback Daniel Jones, and it meant letting pricey, talented veterans Saquon Barkley and Xavier McKinney walk in exchange for cheaper prospects from the collegiate level.
With the severity of these decisions, it's been imperative for Schoen and the front office to hit on at least a couple of their picks, and the good news is that they struck a chord on most of them. In both phases of the game, the Giants have been relying on their fresh faces to produce every week, and their rare successes would not have been possible without them stepping up.
As a dismal season heads into its second half, the hope is that these players continue to make plays and grow into franchise pieces for the future. The value of this draft stands above the previous two conducted by the Schoen-Daboll regime and could be why their jobs get spared to go for the same fate as the quarterback position in April.
Until then, it's about building the budding resumes of their current core of young men, and these are the areas where they've either left the biggest marks or something to be desired.
When the Giants selected Malik Nabers at the sixth overall spot in the draft, he was expected to be the highlight of the group and the long-awaited No. 1 receiving option for Daniel Jones. As predicted, the flashy pass catcher has been all that and more for New York's offense in 10 games.
Nabers has been the Giants' most productive weapon in the passing game and is pacing the position among rookies. He currently holds 61 receptions on 94 targets for 607 yards and three touchdowns, which is good for first in the first two stats. He is tied for the top spot with Jaguars rookie Brian Thomas, Jr. in the yardage category.
From the moment he stepped onto the NFL gridiron, Nabers made it known to Jones and the competition that he can be reliable and dangerous in open space. That has translated to six games of at least 10 targets and four games of at least eight catches for the LSU product, which he has taken for a double-digit average and class-leading 75.9 yards per contest.
Nabers made his official greeting to the professional stage in Week 2 against the Washington Commanders and former Tigers teammate Jayden Daniels when he caught ten passes for a season-high 127 yards and a touchdown. The bright performance would get spoiled by an untimely mistake, though, as a dropped pass on 4th down to extend a game-winning possession potentially provided the young man his first learning moment.
A couple of weeks later, the 21-year-old followed it up with a new sensational performance under the bright lights of Metlife Stadium, albeit in another close loss for the Giants against the Cowboys. He amassed a season-high 12 catches for 115 yards and collected his largest haul of the year at 39 yards in the 20-15 primetime defeat.
In terms of scheme, Nabers has taught opposing teams that he is a major force to be reckoned with in man coverage, where he is ranked fourth in the league with a 90.2 PFF grade.
He has excelled at beating press defenders over the top with a combo of crisp route fakes and strong hands to bring in a 58.6 percent share of his targets for 188 yards, 88 after the catch, and two touchdowns that puts him in the top 15 for wide receivers.
However, he has feasted against weak zone protections as well. Tallying 37 receptions on 48 targets for 372 yards, 101 yards after the catch, and a 66.7 percent contested catch rate between second and fifth in the 2024 class. The majority of his damage has been in the short-range between 0-9 yards of the line of scrimmage, but he has made some noise from intermediate range as well.
The only negative to Nabers's early start has been his run-in with a concussion that forced him to miss two games in Weeks 5 and 6. His impact has also taken a hit in the last four contests, with under 71 yards receiving and zero touchdowns to his name, but the expectation is that the Giants will find ways to get him involved again as the main lifeline of their offensive game plan.
Grade: A
Tyler Nubin came into East Rutherford with big shoes to fill in the Giants' secondary after the departure of Xavier McKinney in free agency. One can say he has met those early expectations with flying colors.
With ten games in the starting safety spot, Nubin has been one of the top 3 active defenders in the Giants unit. He hasn't missed a snap this season. He has made 69 total tackles (43 solo), three tackles for loss, one forced fumble, and one fumble recovery that trails only inside linebacker Bobby Okereke on the team's defensive leaderboard in that span.
However, Nubin was once in the lead spot as defensive coordinator Shane Bowen's most efficient player in the stops category. In the first seven games of the season, he posted eight or more tackles in four straight contests to lead the Giants efforts and recently followed that up with a season-high 12 tackles to repeat the feat in New York's 20-17 loss to the Carolina Panthers.
What has made Nubin stand out from the rookie pack has been his nose for finding the football and making confident tackles that limit damage in both the air and on the ground. He commands the class in both man and zone coverage snaps, but the latter is where he has been more efficient by giving up just eight receptions for 109 yards and 46 yards after the catch, which also ranks 37th in the entire safety position.
In the trenches, Nubin has shown no fear in crashing down from the deep secondary to provide a few pressures or lay a heater on the ball carrier at the line of scrimmage. He ranks eighth amongst novice ballhawks with a 67.4 run defense grade in 10 weeks and has earned 22 of his total tackles, including eight stops while coming from an average distance of 5.5 yards from the tackle, which is also in the top 10 for that statistic.
Nubin's rookie resume has only one fault: a lack of turnovers or sacks. He was always known as an aggressive, high-volume tackler in college with Minnesota, but he also had a penchant for taking the football away from the opposition, with 13 interceptions and three forced fumbles in five seasons with the Gophers.
That said, the Giants should feel pleased that they are getting the most out of Nubin, who quickly mirrors the production and leadership skills that defined McKinney's tenure as a team captain for six seasons. It's now onto the quest for that first pick for the bright-eyed defensive back.
Even though he was selected in the third round of the draft, Andru Phillips's name should be in the conversation for one of the biggest steals of 2024 by Joe Schoen and the Giants.
Taking over the role of the team's slot corner, Phillips has turned himself from a Day 2 selection with upside into one of the highest-graded cornerbacks in the entire NFL. His 82.7 PFF grade after ten games stands fourth-best in the position and leads the Giants secondary by a longshot.
Phillips currently sits sixth on the Giants defensive leaderboard with 43 total tackles (26 solo), one sack, six tackles for loss, and two forced fumbles. His coverage efforts have been practically pristine all season long, with only one penalty to his name and two missed tackles for a 6.5 percent rate.
While he has struggled a little in man coverage, Phillips has done better in zone where, along with his superior grade, he has kept opposing pass catchers to 105 yards and zero touchdowns this season. He gives up very little space to operate and only allows a 5.5-yard average catch with 28 tackles and 12 stops.
His slot coverage has been just as reliable, with only one touchdown allowed in almost 200 total snaps from the spot. In Week 10 against Carolina, he was named the PFF Player of the Week for his performance, which featured four tackles, four stops, a forced fumble, and just one catch allowed on four targets for six yards.
Among his fellow rookies, he has also been one of the best at stopping the run, with eight tackles and five stops. Phillips has been another of the most aggressive players in the Giants' secondary, pursuing the football and wrapping up the ball carrier at or behind the line of scrimmage to help set up long distances that are harder to convert.
It's hard to find much negative about Phillips's first ten games, especially when he is doing it with the best of the position and is becoming an asset the Giants will need to win the battles with speedy slot threats in the future. The hope is that he stays healthy and will provide more of these efforts, like his outing in Washington in Week 2 with a season-high of 12 tackles and his first career sack.
Grade: A
It hasn't been as steady a start for rookie tight end Theo Johnson, who also had large shoes to fill and was expected to be a weapon in the Giants' receiving arsenal.
Johnson, selected 107th overall, was among the best tight ends in college football in his senior year at Penn State. He notched 34 receptions for 341 yards and seven touchdowns with a 10.0-yard average catch that he also had in all four seasons with the school.
The Giants snagged Johnson in the fourth round for a solid choice to replace beleaguered veteran tight end Darren Waller, who elected to retire in the offseason and offer Daniel Jones a proven weapon on the end of the offensive line that could produce better at younger age than his former teammate.
However, it has taken several weeks for Johnson's impact to be felt. In the team's first 10 contests, the 23-year-old has notched 21 catches for 238 yards (11.3 average) and one touchdown, most of which didn't start accumulating until Week 5 when he had his first good game against Seattle.
Prior to that game, Johnson caught just four passes in four games for 37 yards, but he was sometimes a victim of drops or misjudged throws by Jones, who has had the problem rear its head all season. Since then, the rookie has had five games with at least three catches, 30 yards, and his first score, and he has snagged some of the contested catches that have put the offense on the brink of game-winning drives.
Johnson's best game came in Week 9 against Washington when he collected three throws for a season-high 51 yards and the touchdown that helped a near Giants comeback against their divisional foe. He followed that with four for 37 yards and a 9.3-yard average against Carolina in Munich.
With Malik Nabers starting to get double-teamed and the offense commonly finding itself in long yardage downs, Jones has started to look towards Johnson more often as a safety blanket for converting them. Perhaps the tight end finishes the season with some quality performances and becomes the guy the front office envisioned when they drafted him next year.
Grade: B-
Among all the Giants rookies this season, one might label running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. the most pleasant surprise prospect in the group.
Tracy, the team's fifth-round pick out of Purdue, started the campaign as the Giants' No. 2 rusher behind veteran Devin Singletary, who was brought in to replace the presence of Saquon Barkley in the backfield. Once Singletary went down with a groin injury in Week 5, his rookie counterpart stepped into the picture and has never relinquished the responsibility.
The former wide receiver turned running back is leading the Giants in rushing production with 107 carries for 544 yards and three touchdowns, all of which came in the last five games. He also has kept tabs in the passing game with 18 receptions for 117 yards and an average haul of 6.5 yards.
With his impressive duties in the trenches, Tracy has remained the Giants' starter even with Singletary healthy. He is winning the fanbase and football world's admiration with his efficient rushing between the tackles. He displays good eyes when searching for his rushing lanes and the speed and power to burst up the gut and take the football for the distance.
The best two examples of his came in Week 8 against the Steelers and the last game against the Panthers. In both matchups, Tracy patiently waited for his blocks to take shape and then pounded through for impressive 45- and 32-yard touchdown runs that helped pull the Giants back into both of those affairs despite the ultimate loss.
Compared to his fellow classmates, Tracy is outperforming them in several major categories, including rushing attempts, yards, 10+ yard rushes, and breakaway yards. Many other stats find him second in competing with Tampa Bay's Bucky Irving for the positional throne.
His three best showings were all 100+ yard outings, which occurred in those contests, and Week 10 against Carolina. He capped off his first ten games with an 18-rush performance for 103 yards and a touchdown, making it his second type of day in the last three contests for the Giants.
Tracy has also done fairly well at not coughing up the football and keeping it moving in a positive direction, but he did have his first mishap against Carolina on the Giants' first drive of overtime. He fumbled the opening snap, and the Panthers took it the other way for a game-winning field goal.
Tracy seems to have the athletic abilities the Giants were looking for in a cheaper replacement for Barkley. He can contribute to both phases of the offense, is smart with the ball in his hands, and plays with the passion and force needed from a starting running back on a successful team that New York hopes to become.
The future looks bright for Tracy if he stays healthy, which was one issue the Giants couldn't overcome with their precious superstar.
Grade: A+
If there has been one disappointing selection in Joe Schoen's 2024 class, it has to be inside linebacker Darius Muasau.
The Giants selected Muasau in the seventh round as a flier to add depth to the middle linebacker position. Still, with the constant presence of veteran Bobby Okereke, who leads the position and team in defensive production, and Micah McFadden in the box, his opportunities have been quite limited.
In eight games played this season, Muasau has recorded 11 total tackles, one tackle for loss, one interception, and one forced fumble. His pickoff is also the Giants' defense's lone interception of the year, which has been a major disappointment for Shane Bowen's group.
Muasau earned significant reps in the Giants season opener against the Minnesota Vikings when he played in 45 reps, with the bulk of them in run defense. He notched five tackles and the turnover but struggled in that area with grades below 62.2 and was relegated to more special teams duties.
He has fared much better in that role, with a 69.1 grade in 151 total snaps split between kickoffs and punts. He's earned 15 or more snaps in the last six contests but has only notched one tackle for Michael Ghobrial's unit in that time frame.
Thus far, it seems like the Giants haven't found enough ways to get their rookie involved and have been banking on their veterans to carry the load in the middle of the field. We shall see if injuries force their hand in the second half of the season, but Muasau has been a stationary guy on special teams, which isn't great for a team that relies on most of their rookies for production.