Sleeping with the enemy: Would the Giants trade down with the Cowboys?

GM Joe Schoen with head coach John Harbaugh. | Julian Leshay Guadalupe/NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Free agency isn’t over, but we’re getting close to the point at which the New York Giants are going to have to fill some holes through the draft. Having only three picks in the first four rounds doesn’t help. In that regard, I took note of two Big Blue View posts by Ed on Tuesday:

Maybe it’s just an accident that these two headlines sat right next to each other for a while on the BBV home page…or maybe it’s a match made in heaven. If the Cowboys are looking to move up and the Giants are looking to move down, why don’t they just accomplish both in a trade with each other?

I know, never make in-division trades, they come back to bite you. In fact, though, the Giants are the only NFC East team that has not executed an in-division trade in recent years. The king of in-division NFC East trades? Of course that would be Eagles GM Howie Roseman.

In 2021, as you all undoubtedly remember, Roseman jumped the Giants by trading up with Dallas to draft Devonta Smith. Dallas wasn’t left holding the bag, though. They wound up getting Micah Parsons and Chauncey Golston in return. In 2024, Howie was at it again, this time trading up with the Commanders to draft Cooper DeJean plus some later round picks, the most notable of which was edge Jalyx Hunt. The Commanders got Mike Sainristil and Ben Sinnott as the two most notable players in that trade.

It’s probably not in Joe Schoen’s and John Harbaugh’s DNA to trade in-division, but it shouldn’t be. The Giants don’t have to worry about being fleeced by Roseman if they trade with the Cowboys. So just for fun, let’s see what a Giants-Cowboys trade might look like. I’ll use the Over The Cap draft trade calculator to see what a fair trade for both sides would be. In situations like this, the trade-down team has something the trade-up team wants, by definition, so we should expect the Cowboys to pay some premium for the Giants doing business with them. Here’s a reasonable trade in OTC’s eye:

The Giants give up their first-round (No. 5) and second-round (No. 37) picks to Dallas. In return, the Giants get both of the Cowboys’ first-round picks (Nos. 12 and 20) as well as their fourth-ound pick (No. 112). OTC declares the Giants the “winner” in this trade, but only by a little – the Fitzgerald-Spielberger draft pick value chart considers the excess value obtained by the Giants in the trade to only be equivalent to the No. 145 (mid-Round 5) pick. The traditional Jimmy Johnson trade value chart, which is supposedly closer to how teams actually value trades even though it is a less accurate indicator of actual value, gives the Cowboys 2,120 points to the Giants 2,230 points, the difference being equivalent to the No. 97-98 pick, a high fourth. If Dallas wants me to throw in one of the Giants’ Round 6 picks to sweeten the pot a bit, I’m fine with that.

I would argue that this year’s draft, in which big boards have been turned on their head from a positional value standpoint, with traditionally low value positions (running back, linebacker, safety) ranking in the top 10, is the perfect opportunity for such a trade. That said, what are the implications for whom the Giants can obtain?

Let’s look at the ESPN NFL draft simulator to get an idea. The nice thing about these simulators is that they won’t let you get away with a lopsided trade, so this gives us a consistent take on whether my trade above is reasonable for both sides, while also showing the consequences in who is available when the Giants pick. The ESPN tool allows my proposed trade with no alterations, so they apparently consider it plausible. The bad news is that by No. 12, all the players commonly mocked to the Giants are off the board. This is who is left:

No Jeremiyah Love, or Sonny Styles, or Caleb Downs, or Francis Mauigoa (Dallas took him at No. 5), or Carnell Tate, but some intriguing names. I’d be happy with Makai Lemon or Jordyn Tyson to be the Giants’ new WR2, as well as Jermod McCoy as the Giants’ new CB2. Let’s instead fix the offensive line once and for all. Vega Ioane is my pick. Ioane was mostly a left guard at Penn State, but he played some right guard as well.

On to No. 20 – second year in a row the Giants have two first-round picks! John Harbaugh should like that. The top two ranked picks left on ESPN’s board are OT Kadyn Proctor and edge defender Akheem Mesidor. At the moment the Giants don’t need those positions, so let’s go down a little further on the ESPN big board:

Oh man, am I tempted to take Dillon Thieneman, who some people say is almost as good as one of my draft crushes, Caleb Downs. I’m also tempted by cornerback Avieon Terrell and wide receiver Denzel Boston. But you know what? Let’s fix the nterior defensive line once and for all! Maybe by next Thursday Dexter Lawrence will be extended and D.J. Reader will have been signed. What if they’re not? I’m not leaving the draft with Roy Robertson-Harris as my IDL1. Kayden McDonald doesn’t have the pass rush chops (yet) that I’d like from a Round 1 DT, but boy can he stop the run. He can play on first/second down and leave the interior pass rush to Darius Alexander on third down.

Now it gets ugly for Giants fans. They were already without a third-round pick due to the trade-up for Jaxson Dart last year, and now they’re without a second round pick as well, having gotten Vega Ioane and Kayden McDonald for their troubles. No problem. This frees up Friday evening for you to go out to dinner with your significant other, see a Broadway show, go to Citi to see Mets vs. Rockies, or sit down in front of your TV to watch the Yankees at Houston.

On Saturday, then, we’re faced with the following. The Giants now have two Round 4 picks, their own at No. 105 and the Cowboys’ at No. 122. Here’s the top of the big board at 105:

I’m intrigued by the two safeties, VJ Payne and Kamari Ramsey, because I’m suspicious about the back end of the Giants’ defense. But I’m also suspicious about who WR2 is going to be in the Giants’ offense. Bryce Lance (Trey’s brother) is a 6-foot-3, 204-pound X receiver, something the Giants don’t have much of. He won’t start Day 1 but I’ll take the chance.

Finally we come to the Cowboys’ No. 112 pick. The choices are

Ramsey is still there, but so is Logan Jones, an undersized center whom Dane Brugler of The Athletic describes in The Beast as “a mid-round version of (Tyler) Linderbaum.” One sack surrendered in his last two years and taught himself to snap left-handed when his right hand was injured. That’s good enough for me.

ESPN gave me a grade of 88 (B+). I got A+ in draft capital management and A- in reaches, but only C+ in fulfilling needs and C in positional value (at the start of the draft they listed the Giants’ needs as WR, CB, DT, LB).

So, Giants fans, what would you have done? Would you make the trade with Dallas? Would you make the same picks I did or different ones?