How the NY Giants draft position might actually shake out

With two weeks remaining on the NFL schedule, we take a look at how the season plays out and if the NY Giants end up with a top-five selection in the draft.

As the NFL heads into Week 15 of the season, there are currently ten teams still in contention for the first five picks in the 2020 NFL draft. As a result, the outcomes of the games played during the next two weeks can drastically alter the final order of next year’s draft. Currently sitting with the second pick, the NY Giants are in a prime position to select in the top five.

If the season ended today, the top ten slots would go as follows: 1. Cincinnati Bengals (1-13), 2. New York Giants (3-11), 3. Miami Dolphins (3-11), 4. Washington Redskins (3-11), 5. Detroit Lions (3-10-1), 6. Arizona Cardinals (4-9-1), 7. New York Jets (5-9), 8. Jacksonville Jaguars (5-9), 9. Los Angeles Chargers (5-9), 10. Denver Broncos (5-9).

The order of the draft is determined by overall record, with the tie-breaker going to the strength of schedule for each team. Head-to-head record does not dictate the draft order, thus the Giants did not fall behind the Dolphins in the draft order, despite defeating them last week.

As the playoff picture becomes clearer, some teams who have clinched their spot in the postseason will opt to rest their starters to avoid unnecessary risk of injury and to have their teams fresh for the playoffs. Contending teams resting their best players will undoubtedly impact the outcomes of some of the final games of the season.

For Giants fans, there is the conundrum of wanting to see their team succeed, but also want to see a lost season result in a higher draft pick, so that the franchise has a better chance of improving their roster heading into next year.

Unfortunately for Giants fans who are hoping that their team loses out in an effort to get a better draft position, that means hoping that their team loses to two division rivals in the Redskins and Eagles. The emotional distress that pulling for those two hated teams to defeat their beloved Big Blue is enough to cause Giants fans all over to seek psychiatric therapy.

In addition to the mental strain of deciding whether to pull for a division rival to defeat the Giants, for the sake of a better draft position is the difficulty of trying to predict the outcomes of the head-to-head matchups of the dumpster fire NFC East. This season has seemingly been a race to the bottom for all four teams, making predicting the winners over the next two weeks the equivalent of the common fan trying to decipher the most complex principles of astrophysics.

With that said, here are the predictions of how the schedule pans out over the next two weeks, who ends up picking in the top five spots in the draft, and what it means for the New York Giants:

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