The New York Giants took a buckshot approach to the tier B quarterback market this week, declining to wait out the inevitable marriage between Aaron Rodgers to and the Pittsburgh Steelers, and instead signed both Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston over the course of a few days, adding them into the fold alongside Tommy DeVito.
And while this would seem to impact no one in particular given that most other quarterback situations around the league are somewhat settled, the focus immediately turned to Colorado draft prospect Shedeur Sanders.
Earlier this week, before Wilson signed with the Giants, I outlined a plan that included signing both Wilson and Winston, plus drafting Colorado star Travis Hunter at No. 3. Wilson and Winston are stylistic complements at the position, and I think their collective deep ball proficiency could aid some of the foundational issues present across this offense and accentuate the skill sets of both Hunter and Malik Nabers.
Of course, selecting Hunter would mean that the Giants did not take Sanders. And if we’re assuming that the Tennessee Titans, a team that basically sent the mayor of Nashville to Cam Ward’s pro day, will have already taken another quarterback at No. 1, this could represent the fascination of the first round of the NFL draft on April 24 in Green Bay. Where does the NCAA’s most famous quarterback end up?
At this point, a handful of scenarios have become clear. Let’s examine them and assign a kind of likelihood score to each one.
1. The Giants signed Wilson after becoming certain the Browns were going to take Shedeur Sanders.
It’s nearly impossible to see through the constant smokescreen of the NFL draft at this point in time … unless the quarterback in question has a famous dad who has apparently been making public appearances and verbalizing his wishes for his son’s future. Could the Giants have gotten word through some kind of backchannel that Sanders and Kevin Stefanski have decided to team up and attempt to erase the acrid stench of Deshaun Watson’s tenure in Cleveland?
Likelihood (out of 10): 2
Why: In my mind, here’s the situation in Cleveland. The team can either take a massive leap of faith and draft Sanders at No. 2 or the Browns, assuming the Titans take Ward, will get their choice of the best position players in the draft (Abdul Carter or Hunter), plus Kirk Cousins.
Wait … Cousins, you say? Cousins, a quarterback who spent a long time working with current Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski when both were in Minnesota has, according to colleague Albert Breer, decided to let the draft play out before kickstarting the process of forcing his way off the Atlanta Falcons. The reason, after being benched by the Falcons a year ago, is to ensure that he is not simply a hold-the-fort veteran likely to be on the sideline in the middle of the season once the fan base becomes restless.
Cousins is obviously an ideal fit for Cleveland’s offense. I have said throughout the offseason that a great deal of the difficulty in Atlanta was a combination of Cousins still recovering from a major injury the year prior and a new Zac Robinson offense that required far more backfield athleticism and mobility than Cousins had to give at the moment. He has incredibly high bounceback potential in the right offense, at least relative to the other quarterbacks that have been scattered throughout the lower rung of free agency at this time.
While Sanders’s rookie contract would provide the Browns some degree of relief from the Watson financial handcuff, Cousins is going to give the Browns some immediate stability and the possibility of acting as a long-term bridge until a worthy Watson suitor appears on the board, or as a fort-holder to see if Watson comes back for the 2026 season any more capable.
In my mind, if I am Cleveland’s owner and front office, I am looking at the possibility of a deeply painful and familiar venture with a rookie quarterback that touches the same nerve of the previous 40-or-so passers that have been drafted by this franchise (think about the absolutely crushing weight of piling a draft QB miss atop Watson still being on the roster). Or, I am betting on the fact that Cousins wins me a handful of meaningful games in 2025 and leaves me with a set of more enticing options once Watson has returned to the fold and a more robust draft class has arrived the following year.
2. The Giants still plan on drafting Sanders.
O.K., the Giants have signed both Wilson and Winston, and Winston’s deal is hardly ironclad. If the Giants have Sanders fall to No. 3, the team simply cuts Winston and collects whatever the QB makes at his next destination in offset money. Sanders falls to the team at No. 3 and the Giants pull the trigger knowing Winston is a casualty?
Likelihood (out of 10): 4
Pairing Sanders with Wilson would be a very Giants move. The Giants signed Kurt Warner to buffer the eventual entrance of Eli Manning, though Warner ended up having a fantastic post-Giants career and competed for another Super Bowl as the starter of the Arizona Cardinals. Wilson is much more of a low-upside, stopgap-type player at this point in his career.
Still, Wilson is the most established non–Aaron Rodgers quarterback on the market and would have some idea of how to navigate the vicious world of the NFL and the celebrity world that Sanders has also been steeped in. What I do like (again, relatively) about the Giants’ quarterback room at the moment is that it’s malleable. Should the team go through its predraft process and fall in love with Sanders, there’s a financial escape hatch on Winston, and Wilson automatically becomes QB1 with Sanders in the challenger seat.
If the Giants end up not liking Sanders, we have a respectable bridge starter in Wilson, a charismatic backup who could capably eat up a few quarters should Wilson fade or become injured, and the ever-popular Tommy DeVito as a third-string quarterback, who could at the very least operate a skeleton version of Brian Daboll’s offense. It’s not exactly a vintage Green Bay Packers quarterback depth chart, but it’s not Daniel Jones–Drew Lock–DeVito, either.
3. The Giants were never going to take Sanders, and planned on drafting either Carter or Hunter at No. 3 and a high-end developmental player in the middle rounds.
Generously speaking, the Giants need immediate upgrades at about 50% of their 22 starting spots on offense and defense combined. Hunter offers an immediate upgrade at two of those spots simultaneously, while Carter gives the Giants both something enticing and familiar: the prospect of a three-headed monster at the edge rusher position (not unlike when the Giants had Michael Strahan, Justin Tuck and Osi Umenyiora in 2007; and Tuck, Umenyiora and Jason Pierre-Paul in ’10) not to mention a redux of the ’21 draft in which the Giants passed on the chance to select Micah Parsons, instead getting Kadarius Toney and Evan Neal the following year. We haven’t even broached the possibility of another offensive lineman atop the ’25 draft, which could number Neal’s days on the roster. Does their interest in Sanders coincide with some parallel gamesmanship?
Likelihood (out of 10): 6
There’s absolutely no reason for the Giants to come out and say they like or don’t like Sanders right now. Unlike the Titans, who have to circle the wagons around Ward and portray an organization in lockstep and generate hype, the Giants can go through a process and remain open to any possible suitors.
I think the team’s position is not unlike that of the pre–Caleb Williams Chicago Bears (albeit in a much poorer quarterback draft and with much less desirable capital). Which is why I also think that the pressure for the organization to draft a quarterback is not what it seems internally, compared to what those of us on the outside believe. The blueprint for rookie quarterback success has been upgraded, favoring a delayed selection of the franchise passer until the roster is trending upward. This could be the Giants’ upward trending draft instead of the one where a quarterback is actually acquired.
Unlike the Bears, it also prevents the team from making a critical decision at the league’s most important position with a coach entering what could possibly be a lame-duck season. Honestly, I feel it’s the one part of this whole situation we haven’t discussed enough. If Daboll earns long-term respect after this season, allow him to take a quarterback in 2026 after having secured the offensive line, defensive line or wide receiver and cornerback rooms in ’25. It’s a much healthier environment for a young quarterback.
4. This conversation seems a little silly in retrospect, as Sanders is poised to fall a (little) bit further than we initially expected.
Here’s what we have not said about Sanders in this piece: He’s incredibly athletic and the way he can use his mobility while keeping his eyes locked on potential plays downfield without immediately bailing to run reminds me of some of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. His toughness was also on regular display and his red zone usage of his legs can be devastating for defenses.
He’s also lacking in some of the high-end traits—size, arm strength—that would possibly convince a team such as the Giants to take a massive risk in taking Sanders at No. 3, since both of those indicators have been foundational pieces of the franchise’s QB evaluations in the past. Both of these statements can be true at the same time. Would the weight of those two truths cause him to drop out of the top three?
Likelihood (out of 10): 7
I’ve always seen Sanders as the absolute perfect fit for a team with a strong, secure head coach in place. Or a team that does not tend to select in the top 10 all that often. Or a team that has a meh option under center now, would welcome a developmental passer and could handle the increased media attention that comes with selecting the son of Deion Sanders—a media monolith who may or may not publicly address his satisfaction or dissatisfaction with Shedeur’s current situation. Or a team not selecting high but with a new coach who wants to install a kind of Packers-like QB insurance plan.
What teams make the most sense when using those parameters?
• Pittsburgh Steelers: Sit for a season or two behind Aaron Rodgers (presumably) and emerge as a more developed quarterback protected in a Mike Tomlin locker room.
• Las Vegas Raiders: Sit for a season behind Geno Smith and become the pet project of onetime NFL quarterback whisperer Chip Kelly, who has been steeped in the NCAA game for some time now. All the while, the media-savvy and unflappable Pete Carroll welcomes Sanders competing for starting snaps while keeping the temperature down inside the building.
• New York Jets: Sit for a season behind Justin Fields and allow Sanders to be shielded by Aaron Glenn, a former NFL star defensive back who, at least for the time being, has adopted former boss Dan Campbell’s no-nonsense approach to the head coaching job. The Jets could go from a team painfully desperate at the position to somewhat secure.
• New Orleans Saints: Kellen Moore gets Derek Carr insurance and isn’t punished for winning a handful of games during his first season as the head coach of a team in a very bad division.
• Miami Dolphins: While the Dolphins need to maximize the remainder of the Tyreek Hill window, this is the last year of Tua Tagovailoa’s contract in which the dead-cap money is egregious and unmanageable. After this year, the Dolphins’ franchise quarterback becomes expendable should his team see him that way.
• Los Angeles Rams: The ultimate quarterback chaos scenario would be Sanders falling from one media capital of the country to the other … and into the arms of the NFL’s great quarterback mind, Sean McVay.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Russell Wilson’s Signing Leaves Shedeur Sanders With Four Intriguing Scenarios.