Top 10 Jets and Giants NFL Draft trades

Just a few days before the start of the 2026 NFL draft, the Giants turned months of careful league-wide planning into chaos by trading Dexter Lawrence to the Bengals for the 10th overall pick. Along with their own fifth pick in the draft, the Giants will now have two in the top 10 for the second time in five years; in 2022 they took Kayvon Thibodeaux fifth and Evan Neal seventh.

The Jets have two first-round picks too, thanks to their trade of Sauce Gardner during the 2025 season.

And neither of them may be done dealing yet, either!

Both the Giants and Jets indicated in recent weeks that they would be open to moving off the current picks they hold to add to the quantity of their opportunities. “You definitely would be interested in that,” head coach John Harbaugh said of the Giants’ intentions. Said Jets general manager Darren Mougey: “I think everything is on the table.”

It’s fairly common for teams to make swaps to either land the player they want (as the Giants did during the 2025 draft when they traded up to select Jaxson Dart) or to pick up more assets from a team that wants their pick (as the Jets did in 2024 when the Vikings moved up one spot to select J.J. McCarthy; the Jets gained extra fourth- and fifth-round picks that they then turned into a third-rounder in a separate trade).

Many such trades have taken place over the years with various levels of success. Those 2024 swaps led to the Jets drafting Malachi Corley, who isn’t even on the team any longer, and the Vikings certainly don’t have the franchise quarterback they thought they were getting in McCarthy. And the one time in recent memory that the Giants traded back in the first round, they wound up with Kadarius Toney as their first-round pick after the Bears moved up to take Justin Fields. Neither team benefitted from that one. 

Still, there were two draft trades that led to Hall of Famer acquisitions and several who were key components of Super Bowl teams.

Here is a look at the 10 best trades made by the Giants and the Jets either during or just before a draft throughout the years:

10. Jets, 1997

Two Hall of Fame left tackles were picked in slots the Jets held but traded away in the 1997 draft, yet they still managed to come out ahead from that flurry of deals in Bill Parcells’ first offseason running the team. After going 1-15, the Jets had the first overall selection and traded that to the Rams to move to sixth while picking up third-, fourth- and seventh-rounders. The Rams picked Orlando Pace. Then the Jets traded that sixth overall pick to the Buccaneers in exchange for the eighth overall pick plus a fourth rounder. The Bucs then traded that pick to Seattle, who took Walter Jones. Finally making a selection at eight, the Jets took James Farrior. By the time all the trades were completed, the Jets had turned that first overall pick into seven players: Farrior, Dedric Ward, Terry Day, Leon Johnson, Chuck Clements and Jason Ferguson in that draft, plus Dustin Johnson the next year.

9. Giants, 2015

When the first round of the draft was over, Landon Collins stood out as the best remaining player available and the Giants decided to move up to take him with the initial pick of the second round, 33rd overall. To do that they sent their 40th overall pick to the Titans along with picks in the fourth and seventh rounds. In a Giants draft class that included some big whiffs — including Ereck Flowers in the first round, Bobby Hart in the seventh round and Owa Odighizuwa and Geremy Davis in between — Collins wound up being the gem of the lot. He was a three-time Pro Bowler and a first-team All-Pro safety on the 2016 playoff team.

8. Jets, 1993

The Jets needed help at running back, but the Cardinals needed it more. So with Garrison Hearst sitting there and the Jets having the third overall pick, the Cardinals made their move and traded their fourth overall selection plus running back Johnny Johnson to New York. Johnson made a decent impact with the Jets – he was named the team’s MVP in 1993 after leading them in both rushing yards and receptions and finishing second in the AFC in yards from scrimmage – but he lasted just two seasons. The player the Jets wound up selecting fourth overall, Marvin Jones, had much more staying power and played for them for 10 seasons, posting 90 or more tackles eight times.

7. Giants, 1984

This wasn’t a trade made specifically on the day of the draft but a few days before it, and it wasn’t a move the Giants made to add someone new in particular as much as it was to move a veteran player. But in 1984, the team sent quarterback Scott Brunner to the Broncos for a fourth-round pick, essentially clearing the way for Phil Simms to become the team’s undisputed offensive leader. Brunner never played a game for the Broncos (he spent the year on IR with a knee infection) and was traded to the Packers the following spring and to the Cardinals later that summer. Oh, and that fourth-round pick the Giants acquired? They used it to select Gary Reasons, a two-time Super Bowl champion linebacker for them whose most iconic play was a leaping goal-line tackle to stop a touchdown run by the team on the other side of the trade – the Broncos – in 1989.

6. Giants, 2002

It wasn’t a huge jump, but the Giants were very nervous they were going to miss out on the player they had their hopes set on in the first round of this draft: Jeremy Shockey. So they sent a fourth-round pick to the Titans that allowed them to move from 15th to 14th and take the tight end. The Titans wound up using the Giants’ original pick to select Albert Haynesworth. Both players wound up having Pro Bowl careers. Despite an often rocky tenure in New York, Shockey still ranks sixth on the Giants’ all-time receptions list and 12th in receiving touchdowns.

5. Jets, 2000

The Jets wheeled and dealed their way to four first-round picks, all of whom had lengthy and productive careers with the team. First they traded with the 49ers, sending the 16th overall pick (which they had acquired from the Patriots in the “trade” for Bill Belichick) and a second-rounder to move up four spots and take Shaun Ellis with the 12th pick. Then they used the first of two picks they acquired from the Bucs in exchange for Keyshawn Johnson just a few days prior to the draft to select John Abraham at 13 (the two defensive linemen were at the same draft party and literally passed the phone from one to another when the Jets called). Chad Pennington was still available when the Jets used their original 18th overall pick on the quarterback, and the second of the picks in the Johnson trade was used to select Anthony Becht at 27. Interestingly enough, Abraham would be part of another key draft swap for the Jets; in 2006 he was sent to the Falcons in a three-way deal that also included the Broncos, which brought the 29th overall pick to New York. That selection was used to take Nick Mangold.

4. Giants, 1986

The 1985 Giants went 10-6 and were clearly an ascending team for the first time in a long while, but that didn’t stop them from parting with veteran players to improve their defense in the second round of the 1986 draft, one of their busiest draft days ever. First they sent offensive tackle Gary Zimmerman to the Vikings in exchange for the 44th and 53rd overall picks that they used on Mark Collins and Greg Lasker, then sent Mark Haynes to Denver for the 51st overall pick that they used to take Pepper Johnson (plus a second-rounder the following year used to select Adrian White). While using their own pick to select Erik Howard 46th overall, the Giants acquired four players who would win seven Super Bowl rings between them in the span of 10 picks.

3. Jets, 2007

The night before the draft, Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum agreed to a deal in principle with the Panthers that would allow him to jump from 25th to 14th if the player he wanted was still available. When the time came and Darrelle Revis was there, the deal was made. Besides swapping the first-round positions, the Jets also gave up a second-round pick in that draft while exchanging their fifth-round pick for Carolina’s sixth-rounder. The deal brought the Hall of Fame cornerback to New York, where he became the centerpiece of a defense that brought the Jets to back-to-back AFC Championship Games.

2. Jets, 1965

Late in the 1964 AFL draft, the Jets used a throw-away pick in the 25th round to select Jerry Rhome, acquiring the rights to him even though the star quarterback at Tulsa still had another year of college eligibility. Rhome never played a snap for the Jets, but he wound up being one of the most important players in franchise history because a year later, when the AFL held its 1965 draft on November 28, 1964, the Jets were able to trade the rights to Rhome to the Broncos in exchange for the first overall pick. It allowed them to draft Joe Namath. Rhome never played for the Broncos either; he signed with the Cowboy,s who had selected him in 1964’s NFL draft, and spent most of his career as a backup in pro football. Namath, of course, opted to sign with his AFL suitor rather than the NFL team that drafted him (the St. Louis Cardinals picked him 12th overall), led the Jets to a win over the Colts in Super Bowl III and became a franchise icon, Hall of Famer and one of the most influential players in football history.

1. Giants, 2004

The Giants were already deep in discussions with the Chargers as the draft began, but there was no final deal in place, so the Chargers picked Eli Manning first overall and the Giants took Philip Rivers fourth. It was a gamble for the Giants because they would have preferred Ben Roethlisberger to Rivers if they couldn’t land Manning, but they knew the Chargers wanted Rivers so they selected him hoping to include him in the package. Shortly after the picks were made, the trade that sent each of the quarterbacks to the other team was completed. Manning came to the Giants and the Chargers got Rivers, the Giants’ third-round pick in the 2004 draft, and their first- and fifth-round picks in 2005.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.