Giants 2025 Midseason Awards: MVP, Most Improved, & More

Outside linebacker Brian Burns has been playing lights-out ball in this, his second season with the Giants. Burns currently leads the league in sacks with 11 and is second in tackles for loss with 14, behind Cleveland’s Myles Garrett. 

Burns, whose 11 sacks mark the second time in his career he’s hit double-digits in the stat, has been good for at least one sack in all but one game so far this season.

He’s also recorded at least 7.5 sacks every year since entering the NFL and has proven to be one of the smartest trades made in the Joe Schoen era.

Rookie of the Year

After getting off to an 0-3 start, head coach Brian Daboll broke the emergency glass and made the bold decision to switch from veteran quarterback Russell Wilson, who was supposed to ride out the entire year, to rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart. 

Dart, who was the 25th pick of the draft and one the Giants traded up to get, currently is the highest-ranked rookie quarterback among his three fellow rookie quarterbacks (Cam Ward of Miami and Dillon Gabriel of Cleveland) who have at least 150 dropbacks. 

Dart also leads the rookie quarterbacks with 10 touchdowns to just three interceptions, and he’s the league leader among non-running back rookies in rushing yards with 251.

As for what else he’s done for the Giants, he engineered wins over the undefeated Chargers in Week 4 and the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles in Week 6–both without his top receiver, Malik Nabers. 

Although the Giants have had some rough sledding of late, that’s not all on Dart, who burns to win and who has firmly established himself as a leader in the locker room despite his youth.

Most Improved Player

If anyone had told you that fourth-year cornerback Cor’Dale Flott would not only edge out 2023 first-round draft pick Deonte Banks as the starter opposite of cornerback Paulson Adebo, you’d probably have thought they were crazy.

But yet that’s exactly what happened. Flott, who missed last week’s game while recovering from a concussion, is currently the Giants' highest graded cornerback per PFF, and boasts a group-low 62.6 NFL rating. 

He’s also tied for the team lead (cornerbacks and safeties) in pass breakups (6) with slot cornerback Dru Phillips in what is by far Flott’s best season since joining the Giants in 2022 as a third-round pick out of LSU. 

Best Offseason Acquisition

A Day 3 draft pick rarely comes in as a rookie and immediately endears himself to both the locker room and the fan base. But that’s exactly what running back Cam Skattebo accomplished before a season-ending dislocated ankle robbed this team of his infectious energy and moxie.  

Skattebo, remember, started rather inconspicuously due to a hamstring injury that plagued him in the spring and for part of the summer. But he shook off those aches and pains, and before anyone knew it, he had swooshed past Tyrone Tracy Jr. as the team’s RB1 until his ankle injury. 

Skattebo finished his rookie season with 410 yards on 101 carries and five scores, and 24 receptions for 207 yards and two touchdowns. He was the “Robin” to Dart’s “Batman,” in terms of energy and moxie, leaving no question that his presence on the field is sorely missed.

Best Team Performance

There hasn’t been much to choose from, given the dismal season the Giants have put forth so far. Still, one choice is fairly obvious: the Week 6 34-17 win over the Philadelphia Eagles at MetLife Stadium. 

It was by far the most complete game the Giants have played in years, and best of all, it happened on primetime, which, as Giants fans know, hasn’t always been kind to the team in recent years, against a hated rival who for years prior had taken delight in embarrassing the Giants in primetime meetings. 

LOWLIGHT AWARDS

Most Disappointing Team Performance

For three and a half quarters, the Giants looked like they were going to roll over the Denver Broncos, another one of those tough teams on their schedule. And then the bottom fell out, the Broncos roaring back to win the game as the Giants' defense, for whatever reason, fell completely apart at the seams. 

This one not only still hurts, but it just might be the turning point in the season because the Giants, up until that point, actually looked like they might have started to trend upward. 

Instead, well, you know where things stand.

Most Disappointing Individual Performance

We’re going with the play of defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence II for this one, for the simple reason that so much was expected of the defense’s captain, and he just hasn’t been the same player as he was last year before an elbow injury. 

We’ve heard defensive line coach Andre Patterson talk about all the attention Lawrence gets, which shows respect and all that.

But what we can’t wrap our heads around is how Lawrence did so much more last year with basically the same amount of attention as he’s gotten this year leaving us to wonder why all of a sudden Lawrence’s production has fallen off a cliff.  

Most Disappointing Play

There are so many to choose from here, including the two plays that resulted in season-ending injuries to receiver Malik Nabers and running back Cam Skattebo. 

We’re going to go with the turnover that wasn’t on the tush push play in the second Eagles game. If the tush push gets banned as a result of the inconsistent officiating of that play, which was as blatant as they come, then we suppose it will not have occurred in vain. 

Still, if the Giants get that turnover–and they should have–who knows how that game’s trajectory changes?    

Most Overhyped Acquisition

The Giants added defensive lineman Chauncey Golston on a 3-year, $19.5 million contract as part of a free agent class aimed at beefing up its defensive front. While no one was expecting him to be a statistical leader on the team, there was the expectation that he’d contribute a little more than he has so far.

The former Dallas Cowboys defender Golston has missed games due to an ankle injury and, more recently, a neck issue. As a result, his contributions have been limited. He’s appeared in just four games (zero starts) and has two defensive tackles.

Most Disappointing Stat

At the start of the 2025 campaign, it was thought that the Giants' pass rush, which added rookie Abdul Carter to the mix of Kayvon Thibodeaux, Brian Burns, and Dexter Lawrence, would be the defense's bread and butter.

Alas, that hasn't been the case. The Giants are ranked 23rd in the league, with a 6.58% sacks per pass attempt rate.

And outside of Burns and his 11 sacks, the nearest defender on the Giants in the sack department is Thibodeaux, who has 2.5 sacks to his name. Thibodeaux, Lawrence, and Carter have combined for just 3.5 sacks through nine games this season.