What We Learned From The New York Giants’ 53-Man Roster

The decision to jettison Tommy DeVito, the newsiest part of the way the New York Giants set their 53-man roster for the 2025 season, did not reflect anything that DeVito did wrong. He did not lose the trust of the coaching staff, nor was he performing below expectations.

Instead, DeVito’s tenure with the Giants ended because a roster once so thin it required New York to start him as recently as last December now simply lacked room for him in a quarterback room with a solution for now — Russell Wilson — along with a Plan B in Jameis Winston and a future signal-caller who passed every training camp test in Jaxson Dart.

“We’ve got three on the active roster so it can be difficult sometimes, depending on how the roster shapes up – where you have some needs, where you decide to go deep in certain positions and it just worked out that [way]

,” Giants general manager Joe Schoen told reporters on Wednesday. “We’re happy for Tommy. He was claimed by New England. I’m not sure how many other teams put in claims. We’ll be able to probably see that later today or tomorrow, but we would love to have him back. He was claimed and we wish him nothing but the best.”

Among the quarterbacks, a sense of camraderie reined — Wilson said he’d been FaceTiming with DeVito after he was cut, joking that he was rooting against DeVito getting picked up so the Giants could add him to the practice squad — and nothing about New York’s decision to bring him into camp was a mistake. Quarterbacks get hurt or underperform all the time, and DeVito knows the system.

But this preseason, the circumstances that so often befell a roster already too thin to begin with didn’t manifest themselves for a change.

It went according to plan.

Dart’s preseason performances were so impressive that Schoen was left to answer whether he’d changed the timeline for taking the starting job that the team has made clear all summer belongs to Wilson.

“With rookie quarterbacks, I would always say how long it’s going to take them to get up to speed and be able to go out and execute,” Schoen said. “It’s one thing to be able to learn it in the classroom and regurgitate it but to go out and actually execute it and do it quickly and correctly, I would say Jaxson impressed me in terms of – not that he couldn’t do it or we didn’t think he could, but impressed me in terms of how quick he was able to pick it up and actually go execute and play fast. I would say that was something that you don’t typically see with rookie quarterbacks at times and he was able to do that.”

Even so, Schoen reiterated, “I think [head coach Brian Daboll] has said it a million times – Russ is our quarterback. That’s what we’re rolling with and the timeline will be the timeline however it works out.”

This kind of good fortune led to other cuts as well. The positive trending health of tight end Theo Johnson allowed the Giants to cut Greg Dulcich. While Daboll hasn’t committed to starting Andrew Thomas Week 1, the fact that he has returned to practice while Evan Neal looks comfortable at guard means the Giants enter the season with their best-case offensive line in sight.

Even players like running back Dante Miller, who impressed in camp, couldn’t make the cut, because of the depth in the backfield from Tyrone Tracy Jr., Devin Singletary and Cam Skattebo.

Perhaps most important on the offensive side of the ball, Wilson and wide receiver Malik Nabers have already found chemistry together. That Nabers excelled as much as he did without any stability at the position last year speaks well of his talent, but isn’t something the Giants should have banked on repeating. Heading into Week 1 against Washington, they won’t have to do so.

“Malik’s great, man,” Wilson told reporters on Wednesday. “He’s a great communicator. He’s done a really good job of communicating, like I said earlier in the meetings, and on the field too, he sees things extremely well. He has so much confidence in him, and just what he brings to the table. He’s been a great leader, I think he’s really stepped up in that way.

“I wasn’t here obviously last year, but just to see his growth, even from day one, just being around the fellas, and just seeing what he’s been able to do, and how he leads. He’s got great guys around him too.”

The difference in Nabers was one his head coach noted as well.

“Yeah, Malik is one of our best players, so you’d love your best players to be good leaders too,” Daboll said. “I think Nabers has taken a step in this offseason in a positive way with his habits and how he does things outside of the building, the way he takes care of his body, how he is in the meeting rooms, the communication he’s had. Malik’s done a nice job.”

Certainly, coming off a 3-14 season, there is a wide delta of outcomes which involve the Giants improving but not sufficiently to be title contenders overnight. Not only is that something the organization should embrace, but a run of strong smaller outcomes suggests that the decision-making process is working as well. This is, by any measure, a stronger team on paper than the one which entered 2023 or 2024. Forwarc motion must be the goal, not a return to the postseason.

That makes this training camp, whatever happens next, a victory.