Trades by the Vikings and Chargers complicate the Top 5 – What does it mean for the Giants?

The Giants’ draft plans got more complicated after the Vikings and Chargers made trades Friday morning

Things got more interesting — or perhaps nervous — for the New York Giants on Friday morning thanks to a pair of trades.

The big news of the morning (so far, as of this writing) is that the Minnesota Vikings have acquired the 23rd overall pick from the Houston Texans, per reports.

According to a report from Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero, the Vikings traded picks 42, 188, and their 2025 second round pick to the Texans for picks 23 and 232.

The Vikings have been heavily rumored to be a leading candidate for a trade up into the Top 5 for a quarterback after Kirk Cousins signed with the Arizona Cardinals. However, they didn’t really have much in the way of trade capital, having just the 11th and 42nd picks in the top 100 of this year’s class.

That’s changed now that they have the 11th and 23rd picks as trade ammo — as well as just Sam Darnold on a one-year deal.

Things got even more complicated with the news Thursday night that the Los Angeles Chargers have traded WR Keenan Allen to the Chicago Bears and releasing WR Mike Williams. That might signal heavily that they are either looking at a receiver with the 5th overall pick. It could also mean that they’re open to moving down and acquiring more picks in a draft class that is deep on the offensive line as well as wide receiver.

Turning to the Giants’ side of things, we received many reports coming out of the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine that the Giants are looking closely at this year’s quarterback class.

We’ve seen many reporters and analysts from a variety of outlets speak about the Giants as being in pursuit of a quarterback. The fact that they are prominent national reporters and are willing to attach their name and reputation to those reports lend them weight. They’ve reported that the Giants are “done” with Daniel Jones due to his injury concerns and poor play prior to his injuries.

Meanwhile, we reports recently surfaced that the Giants told free agent QB Drew Lock that he would have the opportunity to compete to be the starting quarterback.

At the same time, the Giants don’t have as much draft capital as they did a week ago, after sending a second round pick to the Carolina Panthers for EDGE Brian Burns.

If the Vikings are set on trading up to 4th or 5th overall to jump the Giants for a quarterback, it might become a very competitive bidding war.

That wouldn’t be anything new for Joe Schoen. He was the Buffalo Bills’ assistant GM when they essentially traded two first round picks, (21st overall, 12th overall), two second round picks (53, 56), a fifth round pick (158), and left tackle Cordy Glenn from 21st overall up to 7th overall for Josh Allen.

It would take a lot the Giants to top the Vikings offering the Chargers the ability to replace Allen and find offensive line help in one draft — or offering the Cardinals the chance to have three first round picks in a very talented draft.

If they feel they don’t have a choice in the matter, we could see Schoen forced to get very aggressive between now and April 25th. Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll might not be on the hot seat yet, but they also can’t allow themselves to passively be backed into a corner by the rest of the NFL. We’ve seen how quickly seats can heat up in New York.