Giants Fear WR Gunner Olszewski Tore Achilles
Spending two seasons as the Giants’ primary punt returner, Gunner Olszewski re-signed with the new-look team this offseason. But another season-altering injury looks to have occurred.
Olszewski, who missed all of the 2024 season, went down with a noncontact injury at Giants OTAs today. The team fears the veteran special teams presence suffered an Achilles tear, ESPN’s Adam Schefter tweets. The former first-team All-Pro returner is undergoing testing to confirm this.
[RELATED: Giants DL Roy Robertson-Harris Tears Achilles]
Re-signing with the Giants on a one-year, $1.4MM deal that included $300K guaranteed, Olszewski has been with the team since 2023. The Giants added him that year after a Steelers stint. Olszewski, 30, began his career with the Patriots in 2019. This could be his second season-nullifying injury in three years.
The Giants used Olszewski as their top punt returner in 2023, signing him in November of that year after the Steelers cut him in-season. Olszewski, who earned his All-Pro slot with the Patriots in 2020, returned a punt for a score in his first season with the Giants. He re-signed in 2024 but landed on IR that September and was never activated. A groin injury sidelined the veteran special-teamer two years ago, but the Giants brought him back in July 2025.
He played in 16 games for the team last season, seeing more time on offense for a team that lost Malik Nabers to an ACL tear and played without Darius Slayton for a chunk of the campaign. In addition to his punt-return duties, Olszewski caught a career-high 10 passes for 145 yards and a touchdown. As kick returns became a notable NFL sequence thanks to a pivotal offseason rule tweak, Olszewski also worked as New York’s top kick-return option in 2025.
Big Blue made three key receiver additions this offseason, signing Darnell Mooney and Calvin Austin before trading up for Notre Dame’s Malachi Fields in the third round. Austin will be an option in the punt-return game, having played extensively in that role with the Steelers from 2023-25. His presence did not make Olszewski a roster lock in Harbaugh’s first year, with the Giants — who lost Wan’Dale Robinson in free agency — still rostering Slayton. Nabers is not a lock to return from injury in Week 1, but it is too early to call him a reserve/PUP list candidate.
Kayvon Thibodeaux Impressing Giants’ Staff; Teams Unwilling To Meet New York’s Trade Price
Creating a logjam reminiscent of their early-2010s situation on the edge, the Giants drafted Arvell Reese fifth overall despite rostering Brian Burns, Kayvon Thibodeaux and Abdul Carter. This four-first-rounder armada gives the Giants a tantalizing group at a premium position.
This cadre is deep enough the Giants are starting Reese out as an off-ball linebacker. Reese joins No. 10 overall pick Francis Mauigoa in being stationed at a lower-profile position to start his career (the Giants are preparing to use Mauigoa at guard after he spent his college career at right tackle). But it is certainly possible more time for Reese as a traditional pass rusher opens up via a Kayvon Thibodeaux trade. Moving Thibodeaux has come up on a few occasions this offseason, including on draft weekend.
The Giants rejected a Saints fourth-round offer for Thibodeaux, holding out for a second-rounder. Big Blue is believed to value Thibodeaux “significantly higher” than the rest of the league right now, according to ESPN.com’s Jordan Raanan, who adds the fifth-year edge defender has impressed the new Giants coaching staff.
Thibodeaux has not delivered on his No. 5 overall draft status, but the Oregon product has produced in spurts. He registered a Giants-leading 11.5 sacks in 2023 but has dealt with injuries over the past two seasons. Thibodeaux missed five games in 2024 and seven in 2025. Last season, he only tallied 2.5 sacks and nine QB hits. That came after a 5.5-sack 2024, though the contract-year EDGE posted a career-best 17 QB hits that season. Still, teams are highly unlikely to send the Giants a second-round pick for Thibodeaux given his recent production and health issues.
I mentioned in our Giants Offseason Outlook piece a way for the team to increase Thibodeaux’s value would be to hope he can deliver a strong start to the season. A host of teams have forked over at least third-round picks for contract-year edge rushers in recent years. Not too many first- and second-round choices have been exchanged for rentals at the deadline, though the Bears sent the Commanders a second for Montez Sweat in 2023 while the Dolphins gave the Broncos first- and fourth-rounders for Bradley Chubb. Both players signed big-ticket extensions soon after those trades. Thibodeaux has been a less consistent option compared to those two, however, which makes the Giants’ second-round price a bit unreasonable.
It will be worth monitoring if the Giants’ new staff would be open to reducing the Thibodeaux asking price to clear space for Reese, whose situations reminds of Mathias Kiwanuka‘s after the 2010 Jason Pierre-Paul first-round pick.
A natural pass rusher, Kiwanuka played extensively at off-ball linebacker due to the Giants accumulating impressive depth at defensive end at the time. Reese is currently slated to team with Tremaine Edmunds at ILB, with DC Dennard Wilson and holdover OLBs coach Charlie Bullen tasked with finding ways to deploy the rookie as a pass rusher while Thibodeaux is still rostered.
An early-March report indicated the Giants would prefer to move Thibodeaux, and noise continued until draft weekend. The Giants’ decision to grant Dexter Lawrence‘s trade request looked to lower the chances of a Thibodeaux move, but the Reese pick only offered another reminder of Thibodeaux’s temporary New York status. The Giants have Burns signed for three more seasons, while Carter’s rookie deal can be extended through 2029 via the fifth-year option.
Thibodeaux trade fits had come up after the Carter pick; Reese being in the fold makes it likely a move is coming before 2027. With Reese’s fifth-year option covering the 2030 season, Big Blue is set at OLB for the foreseeable future — if/when Reese becomes a regular part of the team’s pass rush. Thibodeaux, 25, will be a prime candidate to be dealt by the deadline. A late-summer move would not be especially surprising, either, but the Giants are holding out for better offers than they have thus far received.
Minor NFL Transactions: 5/27/26
Wednesday’s minor NFL transactions:
Buffalo Bills
- Waived: TE Max Tomczak
Cleveland Browns
- Reverted to IR: CB DeCarlos Nicholson
New Orleans Saints
- Signed: LB Jackson Sirmon
- Waived: CB Jeremiah McClendon
New York Giants
- Waived: G Reid Holskey
New York Jets
- Signed: T Courtland Ford
- Waived: LB Kendrick Blackshire
Philadelphia Eagles
- Signed: WR Brandon Hayes
Seattle Seahawks
- Waived: WR Trayvon Rudolph
It’s a family reunion in New Orleans, where Sirmon will join the position room coached by his father, Saints linebackers coach Peter Sirmon. The two worked together in a similar manner when Peter served as inside linebackers coach and defensive coordinator at Cal. Jackson spent the first two years of his career on the Jets’ practice squad as an undrafted free agent and will now head to New Orleans for Year 3.
After trading for wide receiver/special teamer Irv Charles earlier today, the Seahawks have waived Rudolph, an undrafted rookie, to make room on the roster.
Cowboys Move WR Parris Campbell To Reserve/Retired List
Parris Campbell agreed to terms on a reserve/futures deal to stay in Dallas in January. Four-plus months later, the former second-round pick looks to be leaving the sport.
The Cowboys moved Campbell to the reserve/retired list Wednesday, The Athletic’s Jon Machota tweets. The former Colts draftee spent the past three seasons in the NFC East — 2023 with the Giants, 2024 with the Eagles and 2025 with the Cowboys — but had been unable to make an impact. The Ohio State product will walk away after seven NFL seasons.
Signing a rookie deal worth just more than $4.7MM, Campbell nearly matched that with a one-year Giants contract in 2023. But a steady role eluded him in New York. The former Indianapolis slot receiver was on Philadelphia’s Super Bowl LIX-winning roster, playing in three Eagles playoff games (including the Super Bowl rout of the Chiefs), but was attached to veteran-minimum deals (or close to it) over his last two seasons.
Although Campbell did not catch a pass in Super Bowl LIX, he saw action on 16 offensive plays. The Eagles did not re-sign him following that conquest, and he made his way to Dallas soon after. The Cowboys signed Campbell to a one-year, $1.34MM deal in March 2025 but released him from IR with an injury settlement in August. Campbell, however, returned to the team in September and played one final game.
Campbell’s career will be best remember for a four-year Indianapolis stay. The Colts added him with the No. 59 overall pick in 2019, but injuries interrupted attempts to become a complementary piece around T.Y. Hilton (and then Michael Pittman Jr.). A knee injury preceded Campbell breaking his hand and foot as a rookie. A PCL injury then occurred in September 2020, ending Campbell’s second season. Campbell underwent foot surgery in October 2021; over his first three seasons, the slot player missed 34 games.
The 2022 season proved pivotal for Campbell. He returned to action and did not miss a game. While the Colts flatlined during their Matt Ryan–Jeff Saturday season, Campbell finished with 63 catches for 623 yards and three touchdowns. Those contributions prompted a one-year, $4.7MM Giants offer. The 6-foot pass catcher did not pan out in New York, ending his lone Giants season as a healthy scratch, that season provided a notable bump in career earnings.
The Akron, Ohio, native totaled 1,063 receiving yards and 12 touchdowns as a senior with the Buckeyes, outpacing teammate Terry McLaurin that season. Campbell, 28, will retire with 123 NFL receptions for 1,117 yards and six scores. He earned just more than $10MM in seven seasons.
Giants Sign Round 1 OL Francis Mauigoa
Making two top-10 picks for the second time in five drafts, the Giants ended up with Arvell Reese and Francis Mauigoa. Reese has not yet signed his rookie contract, but Mauigoa put pen to paper Wednesday.
The former Miami tackle will be tied to a fully guaranteed four-year deal (worth $30.96MM) as the No. 10 overall pick. All first-round deals since 2011 have included a fifth-year option. The Giants are planning to begin Mauigoa’s career at guard, having re-signed right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor to go with All-Pro Andrew Thomas. Reese is now the Giants’ only unsigned draftee.
[RELATED: Analyzing Giants’ Position Decisions For First-Rounders]
New York acquired the No. 10 overall pick from Cincinnati in the pre-draft Dexter Lawrence blockbuster. While the Giants were connected to a handful of players with their two first-rounders, few expected the Reese-Mauigoa duo to materialize. Tied to Caleb Downs — a player who would have given John Harbaugh a potential impact safety along the lines of Kyle Hamilton — the Giants instead bolstered their O-line at No. 10 despite having re-signed Eluemunor to a three-year, $39MM deal in March. Downs went to the Cowboys one pick later.
Although the Browns considered Mauigoa at No. 9, they chose Utah’s Spencer Fano. That left the Miami product for the Giants, who have chosen a Miami O-lineman in the first round for the second time since 2015. New York did not see former No. 9 overall pick Ereck Flowers pan out, though he had some success as a guard later in his career. Mauigoa worked primarily as the Hurricanes’ right tackle, and while he certainly could become the team’s post-Eluemunor starter there, a guard transition is on tap first. Mauigoa is expected to line up at right guard, where veteran Greg Van Roten played over the past two seasons.
Mauigoa did not miss a snap at Miami, but some teams viewed him as a medical risk due to a back issue. Some clubs believed Mauigoa would need back surgery at some point, but the Giants will move forward with the high-profile prospect. Ely Allen’s PFR mock draft sent Mauigoa to the Giants at No. 5 — before the Lawrence trade was agreed to — and post-draft reporting indicated the team would have pulled the trigger there had Reese been off the board.
Earning first-team All-ACC honors in 2025, Mauigoa helped Miami make a surprise run to the CFP championship game last season. The acclaimed RT garnered second-team All-ACC honors in 2024 and freshman All-America accolades in 2023. The Giants have struggled to find long-term guard answers for more than a decade now, and while Mauigoa may be moved to RT at some point during his rookie contract, he will be asked to fill a void at RG for the time being.
Giants Sign DT Josh Tupou
The Giants worked out free agent Eddie Goldman on Tuesday, but they are now signing a different defensive tackle. The team has agreed to a deal with Josh Tupou, Art Stapleton of NorthJersey.com reports. The move will reunite the ex-Raven with head coach John Harbaugh.
The 6-foot-3, 350-pound Tupou spent most of the past two years on the Ravens’ practice squad. He appeared in six regular-season games in that span and recorded eight tackles and a sack.
Since Tupou entered the NFL undrafted in 2017, the majority of his experience has come with one of the Ravens’ AFC North rivals, the Bengals. As a member of the organization through 2023, the Colorado product was teammates with defensive tackle D.J. Reader for four years. The Giants signed Reader earlier this month.
Tupou played just seven games in his first two seasons, but he took on a much bigger role in the Bengals’ defense beginning in 2019. He started seven of 16 games that year and notched a career-high 27 tackles. While Tupou opted out of 2020 over COVID concerns, he returned to play a full 17-game slate the next year and pick up nine starts during an AFC title-winning season for Cincinnati. He played just 11 games in 2022, but Tupou registered 19 tackles and the first two sacks of his career then. In total, he has 94 tackles and three sacks in his 71-game, 23-start career.
For the Giants, the Tupou signing comes less than a week after Roy Robertson-Harris tore his Achilles in practice. Robertson-Harris’ season is already over, adding another question mark along the Giants’ interior line. He was a full-time starter last year, as was Dexter Lawrence, but the Giants traded the latter to the Bengals for the 10th overall pick in April’s draft. They will expect Reader and fellow established free agent signing Shelby Harris to help pick up the slack. Tupou, 2025 third-rounder Darius Alexander, Zacch Pickens, Leki Fotu, Sam Roberts and rookie sixth-rounder Bobby Jamison-Travis represent several of their other options.
Giants Audition DT Eddie Goldman
Following the Dexter Lawrence trade, the Giants added two 30-something defensive linemen by bringing in Shelby Harris and D.J. Reader. That upped the team’s count of D-linemen north of 30 to three, as Roy Robertson-Harris has one season remaining on his two-year contract.
But Robertson-Harris went down with an Achilles tear last week. The Giants are back in the DT market, and another veteran option is on the radar. Eddie Goldman worked out for the team today, NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport tweets. Goldman, who missed the 2022 and ’23 seasons after retiring, spent last year with the Commanders.
Goldman is now 32, and he went through an early-2020s stretch that featured three full-season absences (the ex-Bears DT opted out of the 2020 season due to COVID-19 concerns). But the veteran nose tackle resurfaced with the Falcons in 2024, playing 17 games. The Commanders signed him last year, and he started in six contests.
A mainstay for the Bears in the 2010s, Goldman landed an extension with Chicago in 2018. After joining the Falcons in free agency in 2022, he retired. Atlanta gave Goldman an opportunity to return in 2023, but he landed on the team’s reserve/left squad list months later and missed all of that season as well. The Falcons gave Goldman a third chance in 2024, and he stuck with a return that year. After spending the 2024 season as a Falcons backup, Goldman joined the Commanders on a one-year deal worth $1.26MM.
The Giants have not placed Robertson-Harris on IR yet, and The Athletic’s Dan Duggan notes Reader and Shelby Harris were not present at last week’s OTA workout open to the media. The team will be counting on Reader and Harris post-Lawrence, with 2025 third-round pick Darius Alexander also present as part of this quantity-based D-line staffing effort. The Giants also signed Leki Fotu, Sam Roberts and claimed Zacch Pickens as part of an offseason overhaul. The Bengals sent the Giants the No. 10 overall pick for Lawrence, and that move gave the Giants O-lineman Francis Mauigoa. Big Blue did not address its D-line in the draft until Round 6 (Bobby Jamison-Travis), helping lead to the Reader and Harris additions.
Operating more as a run stuffer than interior pass rusher during his career, Goldman tallied four tackles for loss last season. In 321 defensive snaps, Pro Football Focus ranked Goldman 81st among 127 qualified interior D-linemen. Goldman missed four games last season, suffering two concussions.
Considering Goldman’s past retirement decisions, it is interesting he is on the workout circuit following a concussion-marred campaign. But he is an 89-game starter who held a key role on a No. 1-ranked defense (Chicago’s 2018 edition). The Giants are determining what the Florida State alum has left, and they certainly have not shied away from aging DT help this offseason.
Brian Flores Amends Complaint Against NFL, Subpoenas 31 Teams
Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores* recently amended his lawsuit against the NFL and six of its teams to include a Title VII claim, and now he has amended it again. Per Daniel Kaplan of Front Office Sports, Flores has added a new retaliation count.
The nature of the allegation is presently unclear, but based on the NFL’s response, it appears Flores is arguing the league’s effort to enforce the arbitration provisions in its contracts is itself retaliatory. If that’s the case, sports attorney Chris Deubert tells Kaplan it “makes no sense,” and Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk concedes it will be difficult to prove.
Nonetheless, Flores has scored a series of key wins in this long-running saga, and he is striking while the iron is hot. The trial court has allowed his claims against all six teams (the Giants, Broncos, Texans, Dolphins, Titans, and Cardinals) to proceed to trial rather than remain in the NFL’s arbitration system, and the trial court has also allowed the case to move forward as normal even as the NFL seeks United States Supreme Court review of that issue.
Allowing the case to move forward includes lifting the stay on discovery, so in addition to the amended complaint, Flores has subpoenaed 31 of the NFL’s 32 teams, as Kaplan details (presumably, only the Vikings have not been subpoenaed). ESPN’s Kris Rhim adds Flores has served more than 1,000 discovery requests, which the league has argued are punishingly overbroad.
“They’re obviously going scorched-earth,” Deubert said. “Presuming he’s asking about their employment hiring practices and policies, and even that can be difficult to just to respond to. … But those teams are probably going to object to the subpoenas, probably collectively through the league-friendly counsel, and say it’s not relevant, and there’ll be an interesting sort of fight there.”
The defendants will file a motion to dismiss in response to the latest amended complaint. As Rhim notes, the deadline for that is June 5. Pretrial briefs are due in late July/early August. A trial date likely will not be set until after the court rules on the motions to dismiss.
*Steve Wilks and Ray Horton are Flores’ co-plaintiffs, but for ease of reading, we will simply use Flores’ name when referring to the plaintiffs’ side of this matter.
Giants WR Malik Nabers Uncertain For Week 1?
Malik Nabers‘ recent cleanup surgery raised some doubt about his availability for Week 1. Giants head coach John Harbaugh has since indicated that his Pro Bowl wide receiver’s status is indeed up in the air for New York’s season opener against the Cowboys.
“Just impossible to predict,” Harbaugh said at OTAs this week (via ESPN’s Jordan Raanan). “The goal is to start the season and get out there sometime in training camp. That’d be the goal, and we’ll see what happens.”
Nabers, 22, tore his ACL and meniscus at the end of September and underwent his first surgery in October. The Giants initially expected him to be ready for training camp, but Harbaugh walked that back in April. Now, it seems that the team is bracing for his potential absence to start the season.
“We’ll be ready to go either way,” Harbaugh said, adding that Nabers’ injury was not “simple.”
This could be a worrying update for Giants fans (and Nabers’ fantasy GMs), but Harbaugh was notoriously coy about injuries in Baltimore, especially complicated situations like Ronnie Stanley and Nnamdi Madubuike. During the season, he typically defers to the injury report, but that is less of an option in the offseason, where players’ presences at practice are closely watched and noticed.
Nabers seems unlikely to take the field until the end of training camp, at best, and his ramp-up period could extend into the season. He could even open the year on the physically unable to perform list, though that would prevent him from practicing until Week 5 and delay his return even longer.
The Giants are also taking a cautious path with star left tackle Andrew Thomas. He missed the start of the 2025 season as he recovered from a 2024 foot injury and finished the year on injured reserve due to a hamstring injury. Thomas said (via The Athletic’s Dan Duggan) that he is currently going through a “ramp up” process due to a lingering shoulder injury as well as long-term management of his 2024 Lisfranc injury.
While Thomas is sidelined, 2025 fifth-rounder Marcus Mbow is taking first-team left tackle reps, per Ryan Dunleavy of the New York Post. The Purdue product was the Giants’ swing tackle as a rookie two starts and 261 snaps at left tackle and one start and 58 snaps at right tackle, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required).
Giants DL Roy Robertson-Harris Suffers Achilles Tear
Defensive line depth was already a question mark for the Giants entering spring practices. The unit has now suffered a serious blow.
Roy Robertson-Harris suffered a torn Achilles during Thursday’s OTA practice, as first reported by Dan Duggan of The Athletic. The injury can of course be expected to sideline him for most (if not all) of the 2026 campaign. Robertson-Harris is a pending 2027 free agent.
Team and player agreed to a two-year, $9MM pact last March. That deal set up Robertson-Harris to handle a full-time starting role, and he logged a 56% snap share in 2025. The 32-year-old was in position to once again serve as a key figure along the defensive interior for the Giants, especially in the wake of the Dexter Lawrence trade. Instead, Robertson-Harris’ attention will now turn to a lengthy recovery process.
New York waited until the sixth round of last month’s draft to add a defensive lineman (Bobby Jamison-Travis). The team added veteran reinforcements in the form of Shelby Harris and then D.J. Reader during the post-draft wave of free agency. Those two will be counted on to occupy significant roles for a D-tackle group which no longer features Lawrence and which will not have Robertson-Harris in the picture for the foreseeable future. Reader inked a two-year deal, but Harris is only on the books for 2026.
The Giants also have 2025 third-rounder Darius Alexander and recent waiver claim Zacch Pickens in place at this point. The competition for playing time among the remaining defensive linemen will be worth watching closely as the offseason continues. New York currently has just over $11MM in cap space, a portion of which could be devoted to adding another depth option to compensate for losing Robertson-Harris.
Since entering the NFL as an undrafted free agent, Robertson-Harris has amassed 134 appearances and 79 starts. He was unable to remain a low-end sack contributor with the Giants last season after chipping in during his time with the Bears and Jaguars. Nevertheless, another campaign of consistent play against the run had been anticipated in this case. Instead, 2026 will be marked by a rehab process for Robertson-Harris which will have a notable impact on the Giants’ plans for their defensive front.