The off-season saw the GIANTS welcome former Richmond star Brett Deledio to the club as well as a new wave of GIANTS Academy players at the AFL Draft with Tim Taranto selected with the second overall selection.

2017 was another big year for the club with a second-successive preliminary final appearance and the inaugural AFL Women's season getting underway in February.

The AFLW side won its first game in round five over the Melbourne Demons after drawing with Fremantle earlier in the season. 

The season saw the club play its first Friday night fixture, winning a classic contest under lights against the Western Bulldogs at UNSW Canberra Oval in round six. 

The club had its first-ever AFL draw in round 15 at GIANTS Stadium as Geelong's Tom Hawkins kicked a behind after the siren to tie the scores. The very next week the GIANTS and Hawthorn drew in Launceston giving the club a unique piece of history as the first side to play in back-to-back draws in 96 years.

The GIANTS finished fourth on the ladder and progressed to a second-successive Preliminary Final where they were defeated by eventual premiers Richmond in front of an MCG crowd of 94,258. 

Josh Kelly capped off a stellar year, in which he polled a club-record 21 votes in the Brownlow Medal, winning his first Kevin Sheedy Medal, while Jessica Dal Pos won the inaugural Gabrielle Trainor Medal as the GIANTS AFLW club champion.

Champion ruckman Shane Mumford retired at the end of the season after 172 AFL games for the GIANTS, Geelong, and the Swans.

The club posted a record membership tally of 20,944, the first time the GIANTS had passed 20,000 members in their history.