It hasn’t always been sunshine and rainbows for the New York Giants through the first five weeks of the 2026 season. But after losing starting quarterback Jaxson Dart and star pass rusher Brian Burns to season-ending injuries in back-to-back weeks, sitting at 3-1-1 with a game-and-a-half lead in the NFC East? We’ll take what we can get.
There were a lot of much-needed changes coming off a miserable 4-13 campaign in 2025 that saw Brian Daboll get fired midway through the season. General manager Joe Schoen surprisingly stuck around, and it was obvious he understood the assignment: flip this organization on its head.
What happened next was truly franchise-altering. The Giants bucked the trend of bringing in the shiny, new coordinator and hired John Harbaugh as their head coach instead. Harbs came with an 18-year track record that included 180 wins, 12 playoff trips, and a Super Bowl championship.
But hiring Harbs was just the tip of the iceberg. Everything that followed has put the G-Men in a position to succeed they otherwise wouldn’t have been in a year ago, and five offseason decisions in particular are already looking pretty freaking good through five weeks.
5 Giants offseason moves that are already paying off big time
Hiring John Harbaugh as the head coach
As if I would have started off with anything else.
I already went over Harbs’ résumé up top, so I won’t bore you with it again. What’s impressed me more than the wins and the Super Bowl ring is how this team has handled getting punched in the mouth. Losing your starting QB and your best pass rusher in back-to-back weeks is the kind of thing that sinks a season, especially for a franchise that’s gotten pretty good at sinking seasons. Instead, the Giants are 3-1-1 and sitting a game and a half up on Dallas and Philly.
Sunday was the perfect example. Down 27-13 in the fourth quarter on the road, the old Giants would’ve packed it in. This version clawed back with 14 unanswered points to send the game to overtime. Since 1970, Big Blue had been 0-230 when trailing by 14 or more with under eight minutes remaining. After Sunday, they’re 0-230-1.
A road tie against a division rival keeps the G-Men in the driver’s seat, and Harbs knows the NFC East isn’t won in October.
He’s also shown he’s not too stubborn to adjust when things aren’t working. That’s been true on both sides of the ball, whether it’s finding new ways to get the offense going without Dart or letting DC Dennard Wilson completely rethink how the defense gets after the QB. Not every idea has worked, but the 64-year-old clearly cares more about winning games than proving he was right, and that’s not something Giants fans have been able to say about their head coach in a while.
Not paying WR Wan'Dale Robinson $70 million
Sometimes the best move is the one you don’t make.
I’ll give Wan’Dale Robinson credit where it’s due. Putting up 1,014 yards and 92 catches on a 4-13 team isn’t nothing. But when the Titans handed him $70 million over four years, with $38 million guaranteed, I couldn’t help but feel some relief.
Those numbers came on 140 targets for an offense that had nobody else healthy to throw to. Now he’s in Tennessee with Brian Daboll calling plays again as the OC, and he’s got 22 catches for 176 yards on a 0-5 team that can barely throw the ball downfield. Shocking, I know.
And the G-Men haven’t missed him much. Big Blue took the savings and spent some of it on Isaiah Likely, who’s already out-produced Robinson in receptions (33), yards (284), and TDs (four). Pair him with a Malik Nabers who finally looks like himself again, and Famous Jameis has two legitimate go-to options. I’d rather have that than pay a glorified gadget receiver $17.5 million a year.
Signing tight end Isaiah Likely in free agency
When the Giants handed Likely big money this offseason, plenty of people wondered why New York was throwing that kind of cash at a guy who spent four years as Mark Andrews’ backup in Baltimore. I get it.
Paying a tight end like a No. 1 target before he’s ever actually been one is the ultimate leap of faith. But a month into the season, it’s looking like one of the best signings of the offseason, full stop.
Likely is on pace for a monster year -- the best TE season in team history. Sunday was his best game so far. He caught 11 passes for 94 yards and two tuddies against the Commies.
He and Nabers also just became the second WR/TE duo in NFL history to each get 11-plus catches, 90-plus yards, and a touchdown in the same game. Harbs isn’t using him like a traditional tight end, either. Likely lines up all over the field, where linebackers can’t keep up with him and defensive backs are too small to cover him. It's the best of both worlds.
Adding DJ Reader to the defensive line
Trading Dexter Lawrence was always going to sting. You don’t ship your defensive cornerstone out of town and expect the defense to just be fine. But the Giants didn’t sit around feeling sorry for themselves. They flipped Sexy Dexy to Cincinnati for the No. 10 pick (Francis Mauigoa), then turned around and signed DJ Reader to a two-year, $12.5 million deal to fill the 6-foot-4, 340-pound void.
And it's been paying off handsomely.
If you’re just looking at the stat sheet, Reader’s 13 tackles through five games won’t exactly jump off the page. But the box score is for the birds.
He’s on the team to eat double teams and keep the linebackers clean, and the advanced analytics love what he’s doing. His 87.6 overall grade ranks third among 132 interior defenders, and his 81.6 run-defense grade is third as well.
Not bad for a guy who wasn’t supposed to be Dexter Lawrence’s replacement.
Selecting Arvell Reese with the fifth pick in the 2026 Draft
Speaking of keeping the LBs clean, Reader has made life a whole lot easier for the guy who might end up being the steal of the 2026 draft class.
Most people had Arvell Reese pegged as an edge rusher coming out of Ohio State, which made the pick an initial head-scratcher with Brian Burns, Abdul Carter, and Kayvon Thibodeaux already on the roster.
Even Nabers was confused about it live on Micah Parsons’ podcast. But Schoen and Harbaugh weren’t drafting Reese to rush the passer. They took the 6-foot-4, 243-pound defensive demon to play off-ball linebacker, which is where he lined up early in his Buckeyes career anyway. Five weeks in, he looks like the defense's next cornerstone.
Reese has been everything you’d want from a top-five pick. He picked off a pass and racked up nine tackles against Arizona to earn NFC Rookie of the Week, then followed it up with another nine tackles and his first career sack against the Commanders.
Next to Tremaine Edmunds, he’s helped turn a linebacker room that was a punchline the last couple of seasons into one of the most physical groups in the league. PFF already named the 21-year-old to its NFL First-Quarter All-Pro Second Team through the first quarter of the season.
He's firmly entrenched in the Defensive Rookie of the Year conversation. If he wins it, he'd be the first since Lawrence Taylor to do so. Not bad company.
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