The New York Giants took Deonte Banks in the first round of the 2023 draft to be a long-term building block in the secondary. His rookie season didn’t disappoint. He started 15 games, held his own against some tough assignments, and finished with two interceptions and 11 passes defended.
It looked like the team finally had a corner they could develop.
Then 2024 happened. Banks followed up a promising rookie campaign with a full-on regression. He got beat in coverage, flagged repeatedly, and was even benched midseason for effort concerns. The flashes that showed up his first year all but disappeared, and a corner the Giants drafted to stick suddenly looked like a liability in the middle of a rebuild.