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Jul 26, 2024; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New York Giants cornerback Deonte Banks (3) and New York Giants cornerback Cordale Flott (28) laugh on the sideline during training camp at Quest Diagnostics Training Center. Lucas Boland-Imagn Images

NY Giants Biggest Remaining Roster Battle a Critical One for the Defense

Originally posted on New York Giants on SI
By Stephen Lebitsch | Last updated Aug 20, 2025 2:00 PM ET

The New York Giants are on the cusp of having their full 53-man roster chosen for the upcoming NFL season and their fourth under head coach Brian Daboll. Before that can happen, some cr ucial finishing touches need to be made by the organization.

The common football fan knows that the process of roster building in the current game often takes two major steps. A team’s front office must go out and acquire the right talent, and then it’s up to the coaching staff and those players to put the right formula together for success on the field.

While the Giants and their current regime have seemingly accomplished that first step in advance of the 2025 season, and are reaching clarity on the exact shape of their roster, there continue to be a couple of issues that just can’t be overlooked if they want to compete this fall.

A majority of the focus has continued to key in on the growth of the offensive line or the Giants’ run response on the defensive end, which is still showing its bumps in the preseason. Nobody would be wrong in wanting to see how those areas progress af ter they've been eyesores for the franchise in recent years.

Still, those can be cast aside because the main challenge that stands tallest among them is the strength of the team’s defensive secondary, specifically the battle between cornerbacks Deonte Banks and Cor’Dale Flott for the starting job opposite of Paulson Adebo.

Julian Leshay Guadalupe/NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The two incumbents have been battling it out all summer for the job, creating a seesaw-style race in terms of who is gaining the advantage in cementing any decision.

The greater hope was for Banks, who is in his third season as a former first-round pick, to step into the spotlight and finally prove he can fix his repetitive errors and lack of effort in coverage that have plagued his early Giants career.

That hasn’t been the case, as Banks continues to struggle with consistency, something that hasn’t been lost on the team’s brass this summer, which is why, in part, the Giants were methodical in the veterans they added to the defensive backs room..

Banks appears to be ahead of Flott in the competition.

“We're excited for Tae. He's met the challenge,” Brown said. “He's had a good camp, and it's just not taking the foot off the pedal. It's constant competition every day, and nothing's going to be given to him.”

Flott’s biggest issue has been staying on the field. When he’s been on the field, he has looked better in the preseason, including leading the Giants in coverage grade (85.3) and getting a couple of pass deflections at the same time.

No matter what happens the rest of the summer, one of these two players will take over the job as two of the oldest pieces in the secondary, but they must do so decisively. The Giants need a better coverage game this season, one that ranked 28th in 2024 and was a launching pad for elite offensive playmakers that could push vertical routes and capitalize on young mistakes.

That’s where youth and the unit’s depth are another important matter too. The Giants made a few other additions in the open market. After the draft to widen the talent at their disposal, but most of those pieces are unproven players who haven’t seen big snaps or have been fighting off injuries in their quest to make the final roster.

All those factors leave the Giants' secondary in a very shaky situation as the 2025 season draws near. They’re set to center the group around Adebo, who is one of the best at disrupting the football over the past few seasons, and he’ll need his partner in crime to be ready and reliable to hold down the last line of defense and keep the Giants in close games.

The one piece of solace is that the Giants’ defense is entering its second season under Shane Bowen, and with that familiarity can come improved performance on the individual and team levels.

Some Giants players have expressed confidence in their progression within Bowen’s system, which tends to be friendlier for cornerbacks due to its reliance on quarters zone looks that better split up the spaces downfield and offer help on single coverage targets.

The additional thing will be the defensive front that is poised to get after the quarterback relentlessly with different NASCAR-style blitzes from the team’s four unique pass rushers. It will hopefully set up opportunities for rushed throws to get thrown into the mix and into the hands of guys like Banks and Flott, who, with each big play, could start to find that field vision that is required from the game’s best ballhawks.

If none of that pans out in the secondary’s favor and they can’t pull their weight, it’s going to be arguably the top weakness that opponents tap into in the biggest moments of games. Thus, the lasting challenge that awaits the Giants is figuring out the order of the secondary that’s best going to stop that strategy, or it could be another uphill battle for a young core.

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