Cam Ward has been the obvious No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft for months, and the Tennessee Titans never wavered. They desperately needed a franchise quarterback. And teams that need one don’t often pass them up.
But that doesn’t mean that Ward is the best player in the draft or even the one who will have the biggest impact. In fact, it’s very possible that best player might end up playing on the other side of the ball.
Just ask Abdul Carter, who was selected third overall by the New York Giants on Thursday night. Back at the NFL scouting combine in February, he declared himself “the best player in the country,” and he added that “the best player should be selected No. 1.”
And all throughout the pre-draft process, he kept making a good point about why.
“Those great defensive players, you look in the history, they can impact the game just as much as a quarterback,” he said at his Penn State pro day a few weeks later. “There’s been defensive players who’ve taken over a game, right at the end of a Super Bowl. The great ones also make people around them better.
“So I feel like just saying that, seeing how defensive players can take over a game, we’re just like a quarterback.”
That, of course, is the bet the Giants made in the first round. Despite having no quarterback of the future on their roster — and knowing that co-owner John Mara called finding one their “No. 1 issue” of the offseason — they passed (at least for now) on potential franchise quarterbacks such as Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and Ole Miss‘ Jaxson Dart. Instead, they leaned in to a franchise defender.
It was a risky choice, to be sure, but hardly crazy. In an era dominated by high-octane passing games, teams need someone who can stop those passers, too.
“You have to pass the ball and you have to disrupt the passer,” an NFL general manager recently told FOX Sports. “At its core, football today is really that simple. And if you can’t do both, it’s almost impossible to win. Obviously, having the right passer is the most important part of that equation. But the guy who can disrupt him on a consistent basis sure is a close second.”
“Everybody watched the Super Bowl, right?” Giants general manager Joe Schoen said recently. “Philly rushed with how many? Four, the whole game, That’s one way to do it.”
Schoen was answering a question about whether a team could have too many pass rushers, to which the obvious answer is a resounding no. He just added Carter, who had 12 sacks and 23.5 tackles for loss for the Nittany Lions last season, to a front that includes defensive ends Brian Burns (8.5 sacks last season and 54.5 in his six-year career), Kayvon Thibodeaux (5.5 sacks last season, 11.5 the year before) and All-Pro defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence (9 sacks last year).
Sure, the Giants — coming off a 3-14 season — had way bigger needs. But what opposing quarterback is going to feel comfortable this season staring at that defensive line?
What he envisions is what everybody saw in the Philadelphia Eagles’ 40-22 win over the Kansas City Chiefs back in February in Super Bowl LIX. The Eagles, led by defensive linemen Josh Sweat (2.5 sacks) and Milton Williams (2) sacked Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes six times and hit him 11 times — or almost 30 percent of the time he dropped back to pass.
The Chiefs and Mahomes were knocked so far off their game, they were in a 34-0 hole before they finally scored with less than a minute left in the third quarter.
“Look at what the Eagles did in the Super Bowl,” said a scout for an NFC team. “Yeah, it was a blowout. But it wasn’t Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley dominating the Chiefs. It was the Eagles front four absolutely terrorizing Patrick Mahomes. He couldn’t catch his breath until the game was gone.
“I don’t care that Hurts was the MVP. I know it’s crazy to say, and it’s only one game, but what was more valuable in that Super Bowl: An elite quarterback or an elite pass rush? The pass rush won that game. But the larger point is that they’re both pretty essential to building a championship team.”
Nobody needed to remind the Giants of that. The franchise still looks back lovingly on their days of being able to send Michael Strahan, Osi Umenyiora, Justin Tuck, Mathias Kiwanuka, and even a feisty Dave Tollefson at opposing quarterbacks. And once Strahan retired, they drafted Jason Pierre-Paul to join the fun.
Eli Manning, the greatest quarterback in the history of their franchise, may someday get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on the strength of the two Super Bowl championships the Giants won during his career. But that pass rush was just as responsible for getting those trophies as he was.
And Carter is far from just a dangerous pass rusher. He’s an impact defender who draws comparisons to Cowboys star Micah Parsons for more than just the fact that they both wore No. 11 at Penn State. Like Parsons — whom the Giants famously passed on in the 2021 draft — Carter is smart, fast, explosive and loaded with moves and strength. He’s got the speed to go sideline-to-sideline or get to the quarterback in a flash.
And playing on a line where double-teaming him might be next to impossible? Anyone want to bet against him being the NFL’s Defensive Rookie of the Year?
“I can play multiple positions,” Carter said. “And I feel like, most importantly, I step up when I’m needed the most when crunch time comes around. When you need somebody to make that big play, I feel like I’m the guy who makes that big play.
“At the end of the day, I make people around me better, just take them on double-teams bringing extra attention to me, freeing up somebody else so they can make the play and just my overall impact on the game.”
That “overall impact” could be huge, even though he’s not a quarterback. As Detroit Lions general manager Brad Holmes said of edge rushers back at the combine: “Those guys are hard to find. That’s why it’s called a premium position.”
Is it the most important position? Probably not. It’s hard to argue against that being the quarterback.
But a “premium” defender — especially a pass rusher — is awfully close.
“Yeah, I feel like you definitely need a franchise edge rusher,” Carter said back at the combine. “If you look at all the great teams, all the great teams that won Super Bowls, you have that one standout, great defensive player.
“I feel like I’m that.”
Ralph Vacchiano is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He spent the previous six years covering the Giants and Jets for SNY TV in New York, and before that, 16 years covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow him on Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.
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