The New York Giants wasted no time after their preseason finale, putting some of the extra draft capital they received for Joshua Ezeudu to use.
On Saturday morning, just hours after their 23-6 thrashing of the Jets, the Giants traded for Baltimore Ravens defensive lineman C.J. Okoye. New York is sending their own (not Kansas City's) 2028 seventh-round pick back to Charm City. It’s another John Harbaugh reunion in East Rutherford, and this time, the G-Men made the move everyone was waiting for.
Big Blue’s defensive line has been a work in progress since last season ended. It started with Rakeem Nuñez-Roches leaving in free agency, then hit chaos mode when Dexter Lawrence demanded a trade (which he got), and finished with Roy Robertson-Harris tearing his Achilles and being put on season-ending IR.
The Giants completely overhauled the room this offseason, with just Darius Alexander remaining from last year’s group. The need to upgrade the position has been no secret, and it looks like general manager Joe Schoen is making moves right before roster cut day on Sunday to ensure he’s not left with only other teams’ leftovers to work with.
Talk about being proactive.
Giants’ C.J. Okoye took one heck of a road to East Rutherford
Okoye isn’t exactly the household name some fans might have been hoping for (fingers crossed for Arik Armstead getting cut), but his path to East Rutherford is unlike any other on the roster.
He is a massive human being. The 6-foot-6, 365-pounder grew up in Nigeria and had never played organized football before being discovered through (who else but) Giants legend Osi Umenyiora’s African football talent initiative, The Uprise. After earning a shot at the NFL Africa camp in 2022, Okoye eventually made his way into the International Player Pathway Program and signed with the Los Angeles Chargers in 2023.
His first organized football game didn’t come until that August.
Naturally, he made an immediate impact, recording a sack.
Okoye eventually landed in Baltimore in 2025, where he developed under Harbaugh before earning his way onto the active roster and playing in 13 games last year. He finished the season with 15 tackles and one tackle for loss. Now, the 24-year-old will follow his former head coach up I-95, giving the G-Men another big body for a team that was looking for one.
The timing of the trade can't be overlooked.
With roster cuts coming Sunday, Schoen could have waited to see which defensive linemen shook out of the roster-cut day tree. Instead, Big Blue gave up a draft pick to make sure they got Okoye. That certainly makes it feel like he’ll be on the initial 53-man roster. Marvel might’ve canceled its Okoye spinoff a little too soon. C.J.’s available for the reboot.
If so, things just got a whole lot more interesting for sixth-round rookie Bobby Jamison-Travis and even Alexander, whose horrifically underwhelming preseason hasn’t exactly cemented his status as roster-worthy. There were already going to be some difficult decisions along the defensive line anyway.
Harbaugh and Schoen just made one of them even harder.
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