Giants' Abdul Carter sets the goal of being the NFL Defensive Player of the Year

Abdul Carter is setting a lofty goal for himself.

“I want to be Defensive Player of the Year,” Carter said. And he absolutely thinks he can do so right away.

Carter goes into his second NFL season with the New York Giants having come a long way from the edge rusher selected with the third pick in the 2025 draft and who asked Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor to wear his No. 56 — and was denied. He has visibly evolved as a player and a person since struggling through the first two months as a rookie and getting disciplined twice for off-field team violations.

After finishing strong last year with 3 1/2 sacks in his final five games, Carter has been a disruptive force early in training camp and could soon be an every-down linebacker and a difference-maker in all situations.

“I know what I’m capable of,” Carter said last week at The Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. “I know if I put the work in and believe in myself, trusting myself, trust in my teammates, trust in my coaches, I can be whoever I want to be.”

Carter has shown flashes of brilliance in practice, working against established starting left tackle Andrew Thomas and often beating him to the backfield. Thomas notices Carter being better than this time last year.

“He’s using his power more, and you can tell he just has a better understanding for different types of blocks, different types of attacks, recognizing play schemes,” Thomas said, acknowledging Carter has exhibited growth all around. “He wants to be a good player, so when you have that drive, you just have to get it going in the right direction. You just learn as you go. He’s a young kid. He’s going to learn. He’s going to get even better.”

The learning happened in a very public way. Carter had just half a sack in his first 10 pro games, got benched from the first defensive series of his 11th by interim coach Mike Kafka, who then sat him again for the first quarter two weeks later.

Carter, who is 22 with his 23rd birthday coming up on Oct. 3, said at the time he owned his mistakes. Asked at this camp if he could tell his younger self anything, he brushed that off as not the way he thinks about life.

“I feel like everything happened the way it was supposed to,” Carter said. “I learned from it, moved on from it, so I’m ready to go into year two.”

What are the Giants getting from Carter in year two? Brian Burns, who's coming off a career season in which he ranked second in the league with 16 1/2 sacks behind record-setter Myles Garrett, sees big things.

“He ended the year strong,” Burns said. “I expect him to break out, pick up where he left off.”

Carter intends to do that by leaning on the video, playbook study and practice habits he has developed. That approach fits in with what Burns and others have observed about Carter showing more maturity.

It doesn't hurt that Carter also has a new coach in John Harbaugh, who brings Super Bowl-winning gravitas to the job and hired Dennard Wilson to be defensive coordinator. It'll be up to Wilson to figure out the best ways to use Carter to unlock his potential, though that's something Harbaugh already has a good idea of.

“Just a consistency level: down, after down, after down, all downs, all situations,” Harbaugh said. “Play the run, rush the passer, all the movements, stunts -- things like that — (and) cover for guys on movements. All those things that he’s determined to do, I’ve heard him say it many times, to be a complete player.”

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