Will the Giants draft Shedeur Sanders at No. 3 overall? And should they?

We have officially reached the week of the 2025 NFL Draft and soon enough we are going to know who has been lying and who has been telling the truth.

The most intense tunnel vision possible is necessary this week as the eleventh hour of the pre-draft cycle always brings intense rumors. At the moment those are churning right along and as always we here at The Skinny Post, Michael Peterson and RJ Ochoa, have thoughts and takeaways on each of them.

Let’s begin.

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Chatter is swirling about the Giants and Shedeur Sanders

Photo by Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty Images

RJ:

Maybe I am getting older or perhaps I am just losing to the passage of time (I suppose they are the same thing), but I just cannot muster a passionate take about Colorado retiring Shedeur Sanders’ jersey last weekend. I know a lot of you hold intense opinions, though.

What I am very interested in though is this chatter and connection that Sanders seems to have relative to the New York Giants. It is essentially known that the Tennessee Titans will be taking Cam Ward at No. 1 overall, but the questions as to who the next quarterback off the board will be and where they go have been lingering for months.

Early in the process it seemed like Sanders to the G-Men at 3 overall was possible, but then those waters quickly cooled. Are they back and moving? Could Shedeur join a room that already features Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston? What would that even be like?

I think that I need to know.

Michael:

I’ve also thought a lot about Sanders’ jersey getting retired so quickly along side Travis Hunter’s and I certainly have opinions. First off, Hunter deserves it. Doesn’t matter what happens in his NFL career; he just became one of the most-decorated single-season college football players ever. This makes sense. However, I can’t get behind Sanders’ number being retired. He set some school records for a quarterback and he’s likely going in the top 10 during a weak quarterback class. His win-loss record at CU was pedestrian. He beat one top-25 team in his career. He did not win any postseason games.

I don’t know about you, but in this case you would wait until he has a tremendous NFL career to justify the number being retired. That’s just how I see it, especially getting retired before a host of other CU players who have deserved it for much longer. I agree with his father that schools should not wait until a player dies or they’re much older before retiring a number/giving them a statue. You should do it as soon as possible if they deserve it. However, that justification still doesn’t convince me why Shedeur got his number retired so quickly.

Anyhoo, that wasn’t the main premise of this topic. I’m also getting the sense that Shedeur to the Giants hype is back and swinging. Apparently the Giants have done an immense amount of homework on him and are leaving no stone unturned when it comes to deciding who to take at No. 3. If not Sanders, they will be able to pick one of the true blue-chip players in the class and potentially still get one of the top passers early in the second or late in the first if they choose to trade up.

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Who is a prospect who isn’t receiving a ton of first-round hype but you still wouldn’t be surprised to see them come off the board on Thursday night?

Michael:

There are always going to be surprises during every draft, even in the first round. Sometimes teams simply love a guy and don’t want to risk not drafting them in the name of maximizing “value” for whatever round they may be in. When it comes to the quarterback position, especially in an underwhelming class like this one, some coaches and staffs that are super needy may not be able to wait until next year for fear of being unemployed by then.

That leads me to believe some team, be it the Giants, Browns, or Steelers, may end up jumping at a quarterback a bit earlier than you’d expect. For me, that’s Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart who seems to be the consensus QB3 this year behind Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders.

In our SB Nation Community Mock, the Giants traded up with the Vikings to select Dart and it just makes too much sense should New York pass on Sanders to take one of the top defensive players in Abdul Carter or Travis Hunter.

I don’t think Dart, or even Sanders in a normal quarterback class, would go in the first round. But with how this class has shaped up, the demand will be there for such a premium position.

RJ:

With my coverage of the Dallas Cowboys I have done a lot of work and study on this year’s wide receiver class. The Cowboys are picking near the top of the draft at No. 12 overall so it stands to reason that one of Tet McMillan or Matthew Golden will be there. I’m good with that.

But obviously I have explored a lot of possibilities and trading back is one that I like a lot. It goes without saying that this would be for the purposes of picking up extra draft capital, but depending on where Dallas had to move back towards they could also still walk away with a wide receiver.

Ohio State’s Emeka Egbuka is a fringe first-round player, it varies on where you look these days, and I think he has gotten lost in the fold of a lot of things. The Buckeyes won the national championship which means that EVERYONE on their team got a lot of attention, but Egbuka was phenomenal all season. The trouble for him is that he was not Jeremiah Smith who was the belle of the ball for all Buckeye wide receiver discussions.

The reality is that Ohio State does a phenomenal job of churning out wideouts who succeed at the NFL level. I expect Egbuka to be a steal for someone.

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Who holds the keys in the draft to make things truly chaotic in your opinion?

Photo by Luke Hales/Getty Images

RJ:

When it comes to chaos in our modern moment I think that the most obvious answer here is Aaron Rodgers.

Last week Rodgers made it known that he is comfortable with retirement which is certainly a choice and statement on where he seems to be at in his career. To each their own.

While the Pittsburgh Steelers have seemed like the most logical landing spot for him, many have thrown out the prophecy that was foretold in that Rodgers is destined to follow his Brett Favre arc and play for the Minnesota Vikings. That is the most chaotic grenade that can be launched into this whole thing.

Imagine if it were to happen. Imagine if during the draft we got word that the Vikings were signing Aaron Rodgers. I’m not sure what happens to J.J. McCarthy in this hypothetical, but I know as somebody with no attachment to the Vikings that I would sort of be in on the theater of it all.

Michael:

Knowing Aaron Rodgers, I would not put it past him to agree to join a team during either of the first two days of the NFL Draft. He’d zap the spotlight right off of Green Bay while immediately forcing at least one team to potentially alter their draft plans. That would not surprise me in the slightest.

Imagine if Shedeur Sanders falls closer and closer to the Steelers in the back half of the draft just to see them sign Rodgers which forces an even further slide for the quarterback. A team like the Giants or Browns would have bolt to the phones to make a trade up for his services. It would the best kind of chaotic.

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Only 15 players are scheduled to attend the NFL Draft in Green Bay this year. I miss Radio City Music Hall when the green room was packed.

Michael:

So the NFL Draft is in Green Bay, Wisconsin this year and as of Monday during draft week, the number of initially reported attendees has gone down to just 15. That number seems so low, but then I remember that only 13 attended last year’s event in Detroit.

Maybe I’m just getting old now that I’ve recently turned 31 years old but something seems missing from recent drafts and I can’t help but feel that it’s the lack of attendance by the top prospects. When the event was still at Radio City Music Hall in New York, I recall that green room always being packed with players. It also seemed that way when the draft was hosted in Las Vegas in 2022.

I can understand that more players are now wanting to celebrate the occasion with more of their friends and family around them. It’s a very special, life-changing night for them, but I can’t help but feel some of the luster around Day 1 has died down along with the trend.

Am I…yelling at a cloud? Tell me I’m wrong here.

RJ:

This take isn’t an old man yelling at a cloud as much as it is a representation of where we are.

I think it’s great that players want to be home, and I also do not blame them for not wanting to go to specific NFL locations as opposed to an iconic one like Radio City.

As true as that is, I also really like that the draft moves around. It isn’t the Super Bowl that is someone dependent on going to a location that isn’t thwarted by winter weather. Moving the draft around allows colder areas (during winter months) to show off who they are to the NFL world.

This is just the natural impact of it. It’s all good.