While we await the full New York Giants schedule for 2026, let’s scour the team’s roster for potential breakout candidates during the upcoming seasons.
S Tyler Nubin
The 2024 second-round pick has not been the impact defender that the Giants thought they were drafting. He has just three passes defensed and a forced fumble in 26 NFL games after a college career that saw him intercept 13 passes in 55 games, including five in his senior season at Minnesota.
Nubin has been unable to transfer his play-making ability
from college to the NFL, and the lack of athleticism Nubin showed in pre-draft testing has seemed at times to be problematic.
Nubin missed an alarming 16.9% of his tackle attempts and had a passer rating against of 119.5 during a 2025 season in which he appeared to regress rather than take a step forward.
Were Nubin’s shortcomings the real problem in 2025? Or was it the way former defensive coordinator Shane Bowen and defensive backs coach Marquand Manuel used him?
The Giants, of course, chose not to select Ohio State safety Caleb Downs in the 2026 NFL Draft. They will need Nubin to be better, to be at least some semblance of the player they drafted him to be. With John Harbaugh, who is used to high-quality safety play, as head coach and Dennard Wilson as defensive coordinator, Nubin should have an opportunity to play at a higher level.
OLB Abdul Carter
Carter did not have the kind of year the Giants anticipated after selecting him No. 3 in the 2025 NFL Draft. He had just four sacks and ran into trouble for unprofessional behavior in missing meetings and sleeping through practices. He didn’t remind anyone of Micah Parsons, which had been the expectation coming out of Penn State.
That, though, doesn’t mean he won’t end up having a Parsons-esque impact in 2026 and beyond.
The underlying metrics show that Carter won a ton of pass rush snaps and spent a lot of time in opposition backfields; he just didn’t compile the sack stats to back that up.
Per Pro Football Focus, Carter was 13th among edge defenders in total pressures with 66. Brian Burns, with 16.5 sacks, had just 53.
Carter seemed to learn a lesson and definitely played better after interim head coach Mike Kafka sat him down a couple of times near the end of last season.
You can be certain that John Harbaugh is not going to turn a blind eye if Carter, or any other Giant, does not meet expectations off the field. That, combined with the talent he is surrounded by, could pay dividends for Carter and the Giants.
DL Darius Alexander
It will take a village for the Giants to replace Dexter Lawrence, and they have built a large one with several free-agent and draft additions.
Alexander, though, could be one of the village’s most important pieces. A third-round pick a year ago, the 6-foot-4, 310-pound Alexander flashed potential as a pass rusher, but his stoutness against the run left a lot to be desired.
With the volume of players the Giants have collected, Alexander’s run defense is going to have to get significantly better if he is going to earn regular snaps. Even though this will be just his second NFL season, Alexander will be 26 in August.
This could be a breakout season for him if he holds up against the run, or he could end up buried on the bench.
TE Isaiah Likely
Likely averaged 33.75 receptions in four seasons with the Baltimore Ravens, and had a career-low 27 catches in 14 games last season.
That is clearly not the kind of production the Giants are expecting from Likely in 2026 and beyond after they handed him a three-year, $40 million contract ($26 million guaranteed) in free agency.
They are clearly expecting him to be an upgrade over Theo Johnson, and to make up for a big chunk of the production Wan’Dale Robinson took with him to the Tennessee Titans.
Here is what Harbaugh said about Likely at the NFL owners meetings:
“That’s what I’ve seen. I’ve seen him every day in practice. I’ve seen him make plays. I know how he plays the game,” Harbaugh said this past week at the NFL’s annual meetings. “So, you try to kind of create a vision for a player; what do you think they’re capable of doing? One thing that we always try to do is see what players can do. Not so much concerned about what they don’t do, what they haven’t done, what they can’t do. What can they do?
“When you see a player do it every day, you got a pretty good idea what he’s capable of. So, I’m certain he’s going to be able to put up the numbers you’re talking about, the stats. That wasn’t part of the thing in Baltimore because of the supporting cast, so to speak.”
Likely seems ticketed to spend a lot of time as a big slot receiver and to have every opportunity to prove Harbaugh right.
QB Jaxson Dart
It might seem kind of strange to consider the Giants’ second-year quarterback a “breakout” candidate. NFL Media’s Matt Okada, though, put Dart on a recent list of 2026 breakout candidates. He wrote:
Dart ran the gamut of less-than-ideal circumstances in his rookie season. He sat behind Russell Wilson until Week 4, never played a full game with WR1 Malik Nabers, was in the concussion protocol on multiple occasions and had a substandard interior offensive line. Despite all that, he became just the seventh Round 1 rookie in the common draft era to log a passer rating of 90-plus and a TD-to-INT ratio of 2:1 or better. Two of the other six players to accomplish that feat — Dan Marino and Justin Herbert — topped 5,000 passing yards in Year 2, and Marino won the NFL MVP. Heading into 2026, Dart has gained the assistance of HC John Harbaugh and OC Matt Nagy, as well as TE Isaiah Likely and four new offensive linemen, including 10th overall pick Francis Mauigoa (plus, the returning Nabers). Dart has the tools to break out and could even lead the Giants from worst to first this season, which might make him a sneaky contender for the MVP award.
Okada’s argument makes sense. The situation around Dart should be improved, even though Nabers’ readiness to start the season has to be in question after news of a second knee surgery.
Dart will be the starter from Day 1. John Harbaugh is the head coach, and he has surrounded Dart with an accomplished group of coaches. The Giants are deeper at wide receiver, provided Nabers is healthy and productive for all or most of the season. Running back Cam Skattebo is on track to begin the season healthy. The offensive line looks deeper.
Dart was good as a rookie, providing optimism to a franchise that needed it. He should be better in Year 2.
