For years, Giants fans have remembered Antonio Pierce fondly, because he was the middle linebacker on their 2007 Super Bowl championship team.
Now, Pierce — who played for the Giants from 2005-09 and had a prominent role in the Plaxico Burress self-shooting incident — has given Giants fans another reason to smile, beyond just that long-ago Super Bowl title.
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Because on Sunday, he likely handed the Giants the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.
Pierce, now the Raiders’ first-year head coach, led them to a 19-14 home win over the Jaguars. That dropped the Raiders out of first in the 2025 draft order — and moved the Giants up from second. (The Raiders fell all the way to fifth.)
The Raiders are now 3-12, while the Giants are 2-13 — the NFL’s only two-win team.
If the Giants lose out — which seems entirely possible — they will have the No. 1 pick for the third time ever. (They also had it in 1951 and 1965.)
And that, of course, would let them draft their preferred next quarterback — whether that’s Shedeur Sanders or Cam Ward or (much less likely) someone else.
The Giants got destroyed Sunday at the Falcons, 34-7, which dropped them to 2-13. It was their 10th straight loss — the first time that’s ever happened in their 100-season franchise history.
If the Giants lose out, they’ll have their second-worst season ever (and worst since 1-12-1 in 1966). But they’ll also have the No. 1 pick — a chance to get the quarterback they most desire (albeit in a not-so-great quarterback draft year).
The Giants’ loss in Atlanta kept them in the mix for the No. 1 pick. But they still needed help from the Raiders, who were 2-12 entering Sunday’s home game against the 3-11 Jaguars — a winnable game that the Giants badly needed the Raiders to win.
And sure enough, they won it.
So the Giants now control their path to the No. 1 pick — if they lose out in the final two weeks.
The Giants and Raiders are both quarterback-needy teams. But the Raiders entered their Jaguars matchup still with the strength of schedule advantage over the Giants — .546 to .554. And that’s the first tiebreaker, if teams finish with the same record.
That’s all why the Giants so badly needed the Raiders to beat the Jaguars — in what was by far the most winnable game left on the Raiders’ schedule.
The Raiders finish with the 5-9 Saints (road) and 9-6 Chargers (home), while the Giants finish with the 7-8 Colts (home) and 12-3 Eagles (road).
As for Pierce’s role in the Burress gun/self-shooting incident, here’s a refresher, via an August 2009 ESPN story:
New York Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce has no regrets about helping Plaxico Burress after his former teammate accidentally shot himself in the leg last November.
Speaking a day after a Manhattan grand jury decided not to indict him on charges of carrying Burress’ unlicensed firearm in the aftermath of the nightclub shooting, Pierce said Tuesday he acted reasonably, responsibly and instinctively in coming to the aid of a wounded teammate.
Pierce faced possible charges of carrying Burress’ unlicensed firearm after the shooting because he took the gun used in the incident back to his home in New Jersey and later arranged to have it taken to Burress’ home. Pierce also drove Burress to a hospital, where the receiver was treated under an assumed name.
The Giants released Pierce after the 2009 season, and he quickly retired. By 2014, he was coaching high school football. Fourteen years after the Giants cut Pierce, he helped his old team in a big way Sunday.
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Darryl Slater may be reached at dslater@njadvancemedia.com.
