There were few positives to take away from New York Giants edge rusher and former No. 3 overall pick Abdul Carter‘s rookie season, and what few there were seemed vastly outweighed by the negative impression he left on the organization and its fans.
Twice, as a rookie, Carter was benched for off-field issues.
The Giants benched Carter for the opening series after he slept through a walk-through practice before a Week 11 loss to the Green Bay Packers, then he was benched for the entire 1st quarter of a Week 13 loss to the New England Patriots after he missed a team meeting.
NorthJersey.com Giants reporter Art Stapleton singled out Carter and his Year 2 expectations as 1 of the major storylines for the franchise in 2026, with a lean toward the 6-foot-4, 252-pound former Penn State star growing up a little bit.
Carter entered his rookie season as the odds-on favorite to win NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year but ended up 5th in the voting.
“It takes time for the mind and the body to come together at this level, and for Carter, there were well-publicized and highly criticized growing pains that served as warning shots regarding his development last year,” Stapleton wrote. ” … Now he enters Year 2 with a first-year resume that remains underappreciated in some circles despite those gifts that scream breakout entering this season.”
In terms of development, Stapleton singled out perhaps the most telling and important statistic from Carter’s rookie season — while he had just 4.0 sacks in 17 games, 3.5 sacks came over the final 5 games of the regular season.
Carter’s Mistakes Hit ‘Rock Bottom’ in Loss to Pats
Carter’s 2nd benching by the Giants was made much, much worse by his comments after the 1st benching, when he “vehemently denied” he’d done anything wrong, blaming interim head coach Mike Kafka for changing the practice times from what Carter was used to.
“My mistake was an honest mistake,” Carter told ESPN’s Adam Schefter after he was benched in Week 11. “I own the fact that it was an honest mistake. I was getting treatment and I told Coach Kafka that, too. But to say I was sleeping at that time just wasn’t true. And it also wasn’t a trend. This was the only time it happened. “I don’t want anonymous sources to say these types of things about me that are untrue. I did make a mistake, and I own up to what I did.”
Just 2 weeks later, Carter was much more contrite after his benching against the Patriots — a loss The Athletic’s Dan Duggan called “rock bottom” in a 4-13 season.
“(Expletive) happens … I mean, I let my team down today,” Carter said after the loss to the Patriots. “First two drives I was out, they scored 17 points. I take responsibility for that. I gotta be out there. I gotta do better. It’s sickening. I was sick to my stomach. I let (my team) down today.”
Giants Should Have Taken (Blank) Over Abdul Carter
It’s OK, even after just 1 season, to play the game where we look at the players the Giants could have taken instead of Carter and see how much better off the team would have been.
In this case, we’ll only look at the next full round after Carter was taken — so the next 32 picks after he went at No. 3 overall.
That group includes the actual NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year in Cleveland Browns inside linebacker Carson Schwesinger (No. 33 overall), the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year in Carolina Panthers wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan (No. 7 overall), and a player with 10.5 sacks as a rookie in Atlanta Falcons edge rusher James Pearce Jr. (No. 27 overall).
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