The New York Giants pulling off a Wednesday morning trade to send Daniel Faalele to the Jacksonville Jaguars was not on my bingo card. Getting a 2027 sixth-round pick for him is as close to making out like bandits as it's going to get.
The 6-foot-8, 370-pound lineman signed a one-year, minimum deal earlier this offseason. When he signed, he was theoretically fighting for the starting right guard spot, but after the Giants drafted Francis Mauigoa 10th overall, that hope all but vanished.
Making matters worse was putting up a 0.0 pass-blocking grade in 13 snaps against the Minnesota Vikings in their preseason opener. Although it's impossible, it's honestly shocking he didn't earn a negative grade. Just look at this rep, and you'll see why.
There’s a good chance Faalele wasn’t going to make the 53-man roster anyway. Between Mauigoa’s arrival and Faalele’s preseason nightmare, his spot on the team was becoming more suspect by the day.
Give general manager Joe Schoen a ton of credit for flipping a guy who was probably getting cut into a sixth-round pick. Thank you very much, Jacksonville. It's easy to look at the Jaguars' panic-buying after Patrick Mekari's back surgery and think this is an injury overcorrection. Look closer, though. This move has Darren Waller’s fingerprints all over it.
Giants’ Darren Waller trade tree somehow keeps getting better
Remember last summer when Schoen pulled off another wild trade, sending a retired Darren Waller to the Miami Dolphins?
Getting a 2026 sixth-rounder for a guy who didn’t even want to play football anymore felt like free money. But there was a hidden tax: New York also had to add its 2027 seventh-round pick.
While parting ways with a seventh-rounder is a seemingly inconsequential price to pay, an already-thin draft chest is something a guy like John Harbaugh simply won't tolerate.
For those of you who might not be familiar with Harbs, the man is a draft-pick-acquiring merchant. During his first draft in East Rutherford, he called out Big Blue's lack of draft capital, asking, "For a bad team, why don't we have more picks?"
Harbs didn't exactly have that problem with the Baltimore Ravens. Over his 18 years in Charm City, his teams averaged roughly nine draft picks per year.
They did it by trading back and acquiring more picks when it made sense and abusing the comp pick formula. The Giants entered this week with an underwhelming five picks in the 2027 Draft -- they shipped their seventh-rounder in the Waller swap and sent their fourth-rounder to Cleveland to trade up for rookie wideout Malachi Fields.
Truly tragic stuff.
One extra pick might not seem like a lot, but to Harby, it’s another shot at finding a potential difference-maker. And when you’re trying to overhaul a roster, he’ll take as many swings as he can get.
By flipping a struggling backup like Faalele, Harbaugh and Schoen brought back the pick NY sent away in the Waller deal. Only they upgraded it to a sixth. Now the Giants have six draft picks for 2027. If Harbaugh’s Baltimore history tells us anything, don’t expect that number to stay at six for long.
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