Dan Salomone

If there was only one game for NFL teams to watch of him in the pre-draft process, Abdul Carter wanted it to be the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Orange Bowl.

While gutting through a shoulder injury, Carter closed his college career with five tackles, two tackles for loss, one sack, and a pass breakup against Notre Dame. That game conveyed more than anything he could say in a job interview,which he did anyway.

"I feel like I left it all out there," Carter said back at the NFL Scouting Combine. "Just one more opportunity to play with my brothers."

Jeremy Breit, a national scout entering his 20th season with the Giants, still watched every bit of tape on the unanimous All-American out of Penn State. But he would agree.

"He wanted to play for his team," Breit said on theGiants Huddle podcast. "He wanted to play for his teammates. That's what you want. You've got to set an identity. You know he's the top player on the team and he's going out there putting it all on the line."

Carter is one of the rare prospects that makes life easy for scouts. He pinged on everyone's radar when he led the Nittany Lions in sacks as a true freshman in 2022, continuing on to finish sixth in program history in sacks.

"It's easy when you watch the film of him," Breit said. "The explosiveness, the power, the speed, the competitiveness, it all jumps out. A guy that can just be special at wherever he's on the field. He jumps off the tape."

Carter threw one wrinkle at the scouting community, though. Similar to his mentor Micah Parsons, Carter moved from off-ball linebacker to the edge. The results, again, spoke for themselves as he became the third overall choice last month.

"When he's inside, you see the instincts, you see the strength, you see the way he goes after the ball," Breit said. "Then when he went to the edge this year, he showed off everything that he has. That explosiveness off the edge, it's the top in the draft. To me, it's the top of any draft. He's a top player in any draft that you look at. The guy can win one-on-ones, and that's what you look for coming off the edge. The bend, the dip, the explosiveness, he can do it all."

Breit added: "I think he can set the edge as well, but just the way he uses his hands, the way he uses his natural leverage, and then it's just the speed off the edge. There's a lot of times you see the tackle is not touching him. Guys that can win one-on-one without getting touched is pretty special. And he's one of the top special ones that I've seen."

Carter still has room to grow like all rookies, but he tops the list as one who "doesn't need as much," Breit quipped. Carter will now go against elite tackles week in and week out across the league.

"He's going to learn how to set up more of his moves against top tackles," Breit said. "Having the guys that we have to complement him is going to be amazing to watch. He's going to add to our identity on defense of just relentless and getting after the passer. You see what we've added on top of that. You look at our depth on the D-line and the outside backers, and it gets you excited."

Carter headlined a draft class that coach Brian Daboll described as having "toughness all the way through." After getting him, the Giants traded back into the first round to grab quarterback Jaxson Dart, who checked all the boxes following an exhaustive evaluation given the position.

Marcus Cooper, another national scout for the Giants, started the process on Dart last spring. He was at Ole Miss checking out prospects for the 2024 class and saw the quarterback there supporting his teammates a year before it would be his turn to enter the NFL.

"We actually probably spent maybe 30 to 40 minutes just watching his teammates and talking,"Cooper recalled. "Nothing really about football, just more about, hey, where are you from, give me your story, talk me through the journey of (USC) to Ole Miss, how things are going, what are some things you want to improve on going through the spring of 2025. So, all those things hit checkpoints for me to meet the kid. That was my first touchpoint with the guy."

It was the first of many.

Cooper and the Giants watched him break Eli Manning's career passing record at Ole Miss and then met back up with him at the Senior Bowl, his own pro day, the combine, and his "30" visit to the Quest Diagnostics Training Center.

All the while, Cooper learned what he could from Dart's college coaches.

"You try to figure out exactly what they're doing and what he's asked to do," Cooper said. "Like what is his progression here? Are they doing a lot more RPO? What is he asked to do? Is he throwing on timing or is it more option routes? So, I think I got all that information, and then once I get that foundation, now I can go back to what are my physical attributes that I need to see for the position. So, now I'm like, OK, did I see enough athleticism? Did I see enough accuracy? Did I see enough arm strength? Along with the competitor in him. Like when he rolls out the pocket, now he's working off-script. Now can he make plays when things are not so clean or not so pretty? You take in consideration what they told you but then now you come back and you look at it from the lens of, all right, is he a football player?"

Then Cooper turned him over to the Giants' coaching staff.

"When you talk to coaches, you kind of give them the foundational pieces of what I know about the kid," Cooper explained. "And then they kind of overtake it and just start putting their touches on the guy like, hey, we're going to go there and we're going to work with him and work him out and see how he operates within our system. Now take him out of his system there's foundational pieces that he learned from Ole Miss but now let's incorporate a little bit of what they do and what we do and then see does it correlate and see if we can work it that way."

Cooper added: "You see that on tape. You're like, hey this kid is very competitive. He willed that team to some wins. He got Ole Miss in a position where they can compete for a playoff spot. So, I saw all the competitiveness that I need to see along with my multiple interactions with the kid. Are there still things that he needs to develop? Absolutely. But at the same time, I felt enough competitiveness. I felt enough leadership. I felt enough internal grit within the kid where like, hey, he can withstand the development that is needed for him to take that next step."

Another player whom Cooper scouted this year also checked the toughness box -- and then some. That was none other than hard-nosed running back Cam Skattebo, the fourth-round draft choice from Arizona State who finished fifth in Heisman Trophy voting.

"We look for all these traits, right?" Cooper said. "You're like, oh, is he fast? Is he explosive? But I think the football intangibles with him, the toughness, the grit, the desire, at the end of the day, this is still a physical sport and this kid runs with a lot of physicality and a demeanor I feel like you want your culture to be built on. He runs with violence. He plays the game the right way, in my opinion."

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