The New York Giants elevated quarterback Jake Haener from the practice squad for Sunday’s Week 4 game against the Arizona Cardinals, a short-term roster move that puts him back in the backup role behind Jameis Winston while the club’s newly acquired quarterback gets his bearings, via the NFL transaction wire.
Haener’s path through the last two weeks has been unusually circular. With starter Jaxson Dart out for the season after knee surgery, New York promoted Haener from the practice squad to the active roster ahead of Week 3 against the Tennessee Titans.
He was active for that win and did not play. After the Giants acquired J.J. McCarthy from Minnesota, they waived Haener, then brought him back onto the practice squad.
Saturday’s elevation, his first standard elevation of the season, restores him as the No. 2 for the Cardinals game, with McCarthy listed as the emergency quarterback.
Head coach John Harbaugh said Friday that the staff is not ready to lock in how McCarthy and Haener will be used over the longer term.
Haener has only been with the team a little more than a month, Harbaugh noted, but he is further along in the offense than McCarthy, who has had roughly a week to learn the playbook. For one Sunday, familiarity won out over the trade acquisition.
The 27-year-old came to New York with a thin NFL résumé and a longer college one. He was a three-year starter at Fresno State, earning first-team All-Mountain West honors as a senior, second-team recognition as a junior, and an honorable mention in 2020.
The Saints took him with the 127th pick in the fourth round of the 2023 draft and signed him to a four-year rookie deal worth about $4.5 million, including a signing bonus of roughly $705,000.
New Orleans waived him after three seasons. The Giants signed him to their practice squad after the preseason and have shuffled him on and off the 53-man roster since Dart’s injury.
His only substantial regular-season sample came in 2024, when he appeared in eight games for the Saints and made one start. He completed 46.2 percent of his passes for 226 yards, one touchdown, and one interception.
He has yet to throw a pass for New York this season. The elevation does not guarantee snaps against Arizona; it simply keeps a quarterback who already knows the call sheet on the sideline if Winston cannot finish the game.
The Giants also elevated outside linebacker Trace Ford, an undrafted free agent out of Oklahoma State, to add edge depth with Brian Burns out for the year.
For the quarterback room, though, the relevant name on the transaction sheet is Haener’s.
Until McCarthy is comfortable enough to move up the depth chart, the former Fresno State starter remains the next man up.
