List of New York Giants first-round draft picks
The New York Giants are a National Football League franchise founded in the 1925 season, the NFL's sixth. Eleven years later, the league introduced the NFL Draft after team owners voted on it in 1935. The intention of the draft was to make the NFL more competitive, as a few stronger teams, including the Giants, had an advantage in signing young players because they were able to offer higher salaries and an opportunity to compete for championships. Since that first draft, the Giants have selected 86 players in the first round. The team's first-round pick in the inaugural NFL Draft was Art Lewis, a tackle from Ohio University; he was the 9th overall selection. In the most recent draft, held in 2025, the Giants chose Penn State defensive end Abdul Carter and Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart.
Officially known as the "NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting", but more often called the NFL Draft, the event is the NFL's primary mechanism for distributing newly professional players finished with their college football careers to its teams. The draft order is determined based on the previous season's standings; the teams with the worst win–loss records receive the earliest picks. Teams that qualified for the NFL playoffs select after non-qualifiers, and their order depends on how far they advanced. The final two selections in the first round are reserved for the Super Bowl runner-up and champion. Draft picks are tradable, and players or other picks can be acquired with them.
Of the 86 players drafted by the Giants in the first round, 27 played at one of the running back positions. Of these, 10 were halfbacks and six were fullbacks, and the remaining 11 are credited as backs, blocking backs, or running backs. Among other frequently drafted positions, the Giants have chosen 10 offensive tackles, eight defensive backs, eight defensive ends, seven wide receivers, six quarterbacks, and five defensive tackles. Five of the Giants' first-round picks attended the University of Notre Dame, more than any other college. Four picks came from Miami, while nine universities have had three players selected. The Giants have held the first overall pick twice, in 1951 and 1965, selecting Kyle Rote and Tucker Frederickson. Three of the team's first-round picks—George Connor, Frank Gifford, and Lawrence Taylor—have been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The Giants did not draft a player in the first round on 11 occasions. Two of those picks, for the 1967 and 1968 drafts, were traded to the Minnesota Vikings in 1967 as part of a deal for quarterback Fran Tarkenton. During the 1974 season, the Giants dealt their 1975 first-round choice to the Dallas Cowboys for another quarterback, Craig Morton. In another case when the Giants used first-round draft picks to trade for a quarterback, the team acquired 2004 first overall pick Eli Manning from the San Diego Chargers, in a deal that included their 2004 and 2005 first-round picks; the Giants had already selected Philip Rivers with the 2004 pick, the fourth in that year's draft. The Giants used multiple first-round selections in 1951, 1972, 1984, 2019, 2022, and 2025; in the second instance; they gained a selection by trading Tarkenton back to the Vikings.