In assembling the beginning of our top 10 most important New York Giants players list, we have thus far looked at players who give the 2026 Giants something they did not have last season.
Tight end Isaiah Likely, No. 10 on the list, brings size and play-making. More importantly, though, with a ⅝ rate of just 2.8% last season and 3.4% in 2024, he brings reliability Theo Johnson did not offer a year ago.
Guard Sisi Mauigoa brings a powerful run-blocking presence the Giants did not have in 2025. He also
brings youth to a line that badly needed an injection of it.
The No. 8 player on our list, rookie linebacker Arvell Reese, is another player who adds something to the Giants that they were missing.
Reese, selected No. 5 overall in the 2026 NFL Draft, brings size at 6-foot-4, 243 pounds. He isn’t as big as 6-4⅝, 251-pound Tremaine Edmunds, the veteran linebacker he will line up next to, but the duo give the Giants a massive, space-eating, athletic presence in the middle of the field.
That duo, in fact, is big enough that edge defender Brian Burns said this spring that “they look like us.”
Reese also brings speed, athleticism, pass-rush potential and an ability to play both going forward and backward. It is a combination of skills usually seen in an edge defender.
Reese was, in fact, looked at by the majority of as an edge defender in the buildup to the draft. The Giants saw a potentially dominant off-ball linebacker will pass-rush potential. They pounced when he was available to them with their first pick in the draft.
Reese brings versatility that will allow defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson to move him, Abdul Carter, Brian Burns, and Kayvon Thibodoeaux around the defensive front.
“He’ll be in the A gap, the B gap, the C gap, the D gap, off the edge,” head coach John Harbaugh said the night the Giants drafted Reese. “He’ll be moving around with all of our guys.”
Reese heard all the chatter about him moving from off-ball linebacker to the edge, the way Micah Parsons did when he came into the NFL. He is happy the Giants saw him in the off-ball role.
“Just playing linebacker, that’s where I feel I’m most comfortable,” Reese said. “I’m a linebacker.”
Clearly, Reese is unlike any off-ball linebacker the Giants have had in many years.
