‘Keep an eye on Big Blue’ to move up for QB in 2024 NFL Draft

NFL insiders think Joe Schoen might want to move up for a successor to Daniel Jones

Could the New York Giants make a dramatic move up the board for a quarterback in the 2024 NFL Draft? Maybe.

In assessing the 2024 quarterback market, Ian Rapoport, Tom Pelissero and Mike Garofolo of NFL Network come to this conclusion:

Keep an eye on Big Blue to see if they try jockeying for position at the top of the draft.

That’s not a guarantee from these NFL insiders that the Giants will move up. It is, though, an admission that a big move can’t be ruled out.

Here is the full analysis:

The Giants are confident Daniel Jones will be ready to go Week 1 after tearing his ACL in early November. He’s been in the team facility regularly for rehab work, and while he’s not moving a lot yet, he’s said to be making good progress.

Jones has $35.5 million fully guaranteed in 2024; after that, the guarantees are for injury only. The Giants are sitting at No. 6 in the draft order, which means they’d likely have to move up to nab one of the top quarterbacks in April.

GM Joe Schoen attended a handful of games this past fall in which those passers were playing, including the USC-Washington game that featured both Caleb Williams and Michael Penix Jr.. Keep an eye on Big Blue to see if they try jockeying for position at the top of the draft.

Another well-informed draft insider, Daniel Jeremiah, offered this insight:

That could mean teams looking to move into the top three for one of USC’s Caleb Williams, North Carolina’s Drake Maye or LSU’s Jayden Daniels. It could also mean teams jockeying for the second tier of quarterbacks — Michigan’s J.J McCarthy, Oregon’s Bo Nix and Washington’s Michael Penix Jr.

We don’t know at this point which quarterback, or quarterbacks, Giants GM Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll might be in love with. If any. We know that Schoen watched all of the top quarterbacks in person during the 2023 college football season.

We also know that moving all the way from No. 6 to No. 1, probably for Williams, seems unlikely to happen. The Chicago Bears who own that No. 1 pick, are said to want ‘historic compensation’ to trade the pick.

The Giants are probably not in position to offer that.

We know, though, that Schoen was assistant GM for Brandon Beane with the Buffalo Bills when Beane engineered a pair of trades to move from No. 21 in the 2018 NFL Draft all the way to No. 7 to select quarterback Josh Allen.

That has worked out pretty well for the Bills.

If the Bears don’t trade the first overall pick, there is an expectation at this point that quarterbacks could go 1-2-3 in the draft. The Bears, Washington Commanders and New England Patriots, with the top three picks, could all be looking to reset with new rookie quarterbacks.

There has been some speculation that the Patriots, with the third pick, might be willing to move off that spot if the quarterback they want goes to Chicago or Washington. If someone like wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. breaks up the run on quarterbacks, the Arizona Cardinals will be in an enviable position with the fourth pick. They have Kyler Murray at quarterback and could earn a draft windfall for moving back with a quarterback-needy team.