When a franchise has been mismanaged as badly as the New York Giants have been for many years, no direction may be the best direction.
It has been a dreary offseason so far in East Rutherford. Daniel Jones remains in limbo as new general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll ponder the wisdom of exercising the fifth-year option on his rookie contract. No WFAN-fantasy trade of Saquon Barkley for multiple first-round picks materialized. Free agency was a damp fizzle. Schoen and Daboll’s message during their combine press conferences last month boiled down to: “Don’t get your hopes up.”
The Giants began this week by restructuring the contract of Adoree’ Jackson, a serviceable cornerback who signed with the team for three years and $39 million last season. It’s rarely a good sign when a team is forced to perform cap restructurings after one year, and Schoen referred to such maneuvers in the past as a “last resort.” But there was little else Schoen could do to clear cap space: The Giants couldn’t even cut Jackson without eating lots of leftover bonus money, and Jackson doesn’t deserve to get cut anyway. Even after pushing Jackson’s compensation out through 2024, the Giants still lack the cap space to sign their own 2022 draft class.
That’s right: Retired former GM Dave Gettleman left the Giants in such perilous cap shape that his successor is exercising his “last resorts” after just a few months on the job, and even the team’s most valuable assets—a pair of top-10 draft picks—are a double-edged sword. That’s some staggering malpractice.
Schoen and Daboll must be fighting a strong urge to do something: trade Barkley for a 2003 Buick; draft Malik Willis and donate Jones to charity for the tax break; drive donuts in the MetLife Stadium parking lot while blasting Slipknot and screaming Gettleman’s name into the North Jersey sky. But while the new Giants brain trust might be able to do something cathartic, they cannot do anything constructive. Their best options are actually destructive: For example, trading cornerback James Bradberry because he’s one of the only players on the roster with real market value and wiping his salary off the books would clear at least $12 million.
Moving Bradberry makes veterans-for-resources rebuilding sense, though it would weaken an already pathetic roster in the short term. This is a harm-reduction spring for the Giants. The best moves Schoen and Daboll are making are the ones they are choosing not to make.
The Devil and Danny Dimes
Giants offseason activities began on Monday, and Daniel Jones assured the media that he would be “cleared and ready to go.”
Jones suffered a neck injury against the Eagles in Week 12 of 2021, though he stayed in to finish a mucky 13-7 Giants victory. He was limited in practice the following week, then eventually ruled out against the Dolphins. He spent the next two games in an injury-report holding pattern before landing on injured reserve on Dec. 20.
The Giants issued a statement in December—through their head trainer, an unusual source for even injury-related news—that Jones was examined by multiple back and spine experts but had not been cleared for contact. Yet the organization also made it clear that Jones did not need surgery, just a few more weeks of rest.
“I’ve been adamant in saying with all the information we’ve been given from the doctors involved and the medical team, that there is no, at this moment, concern for a long-term injury,” former coach Joe Judge said at the time. “This is more of a precautionary measure to make sure something isn’t aggravated or agitated before it is healed and doesn’t turn into something that is chronic and long term.”
A suspicious soul might note that Jones’ prognosis grew worse whenever Judge’s job security became more tenuous. After all, an injured quarterback makes an acceptable excuse for a lost season. Indeed, Judge appeared to have saved his job, even as Mike Glennon and Jake Fromm flailed helplessly on the field, until his press conferences devolved into post-dental surgery ravings.
Conspiracy theories aside, the Giants sounded the “Jones is gonna be just fine” sirens soon after Judge and Gettleman were gone in January. They did not, however, exercise the fifth-year option on Jones’ rookie contract, something teams routinely do when they are completely satisfied with the progress of any young player, particularly a quarterback (unless they offer that player a hefty new deal instead).
Jones ranked 26th in DVOA last year, his third straight season in the bottom quartile among starters. He ranked third-worst in failed completions and dead last among 34 qualified starters in ALEX.
There were extenuating circumstances, like the inscrutable Judge, paint-by-numbers coordinator Jason Garrett and another season behind a flimsy offensive line. There were also a few positive indicators. Per Sports Info Solutions, Jones ranked fifth in adjusted net yards per attempt on 15-plus-yard passes, ahead of Aaron Rodgers and Matthew Stafford. Still, there aren’t nearly enough splits to suggest that Jones is some undiscovered Josh Allen. Even Jones’ rushing was a net negative according to DVOA and DYAR.
The fifth-year option would cost the Giants a little over $22 million guaranteed in 2023. Failure to exercise the option makes Jones a free agent at the end of the 2022 season. If Jones enjoys a breakout year under Daboll and his staff, the Giants will probably be forced to franchise tag him at a salary of around $35 million. But if Jones cements his status among the bottom quartile of NFL starters and/or suffers through another injury-marred season, the Giants can move on for free.
The Giants have until May 2 to decide. As of now, it sure appears that they are hedging in the direction of not anticipating that breakout season.
Schoen and Daboll might simply have been waiting to see Jones in the building for a few days, healthy and bushy-tailed, before making their contract decision. Perhaps they are waiting until they process more contracts for players like Adoree’ Jackson before they commit any 2023 money to Jones (and defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, whose fifth-year option will cost the Giants around $11 million to exercise). They possibly have one eye on Baker Mayfield or Jimmy Garoppolo if one becomes available for a third-day draft pick.
There are also political factors. Owner John Mara, who hates being portrayed as a meddler but not enough to stop, thinks of Jones as Eli Manning Junior and his Giants as grand custodians of the sport who approach the development of young quarterbacks with old-fashioned patience and care. Mara has made it clear that he wants Jones to get an “intelligent evaluation” under better conditions.
Daboll, meanwhile, has his Josh Allen-certified quarterback guru reputation to protect and enhance. Mara hired Daboll to turn Jones into Allen. Daboll knows it. So Daboll must be diplomatic about any potential pivot to Plan B.
In summary, Jones isn’t the Giants starting quarterback in 2022 because he’s still a top prospect. He the Giants starter because: a) he’s cheap in 2022; b) any replacement would cost money and resources the team doesn’t have; and c) the guy who signs the checks loves him.
The Giants may well exercise that fifth-year option, because it’s Mara’s money to spend. But Daboll and Schoen were there when the Bills transitioned from Tyrod Taylor (Jones’ new backup/quasi-challenger) to Nathan Peterman (LOL) to Allen. They know that quarterback succession must be handled delicately. Often, that starts by signaling to everyone, including their boss, that they are not making a full commitment to the incumbent.
For Trade, Running Back, Poorly Used
Saquon Barkley’s services will cost the Giants $7.2 million guaranteed this season unless they can find a trading partner. That is why they are extremely unlikely to find a trading partner.
Barkley rushed for 593 yards and 3.7 yards per carry in 2021. He ranked 45th in both rushing DVOA and DYAR last year, behind luminaries such as Chuba Hubbard and Rex Burkhead. His receiving DVOA and DYAR were also negative. He was healthy for just two games in 2020 and hasn’t played a full season since his 2018 Pro Bowl rookie year.
Barkley was a rock star at Penn State. He remains a binkie to the traditionalist hive of Giants fans, who either eagerly await his return to greatness or believe that some team is slathering to offer the Giants a Ricky Williams trade. But Barkley is really the wooden stake through the vampire heart of the argument that a running back should ever be taken in the top half of the first round of the draft.
The draft pick the Giants used on Barkley could have been Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson. Of course. it could also have been Sam Darnold or Josh Rosen. Or Quenton Nelson or Vita Vea, for that matter, if Gettleman truly followed his muse that year. All of that woulda-coulda-shoulda speculation is in the past. As of April 2022, Barkley may end up costing the Giants James Bradberry, a broken-down running back eating up resources the team needs to retain a quality starting cornerback in his prime.
That’s precisely the sort of long-range opportunity-cost calculation Gettleman loved to publicly chuckle off. Barkley’s fifth-year option was like his going away present to his successors. But then, so were many of the roster and financial decisions the Giants made in 2020 and 2021, when they pretended they were win-now contenders despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
No wonder Schoen doesn’t want to spend any future bucks. He’s currently stuck paying so many bills from the past that he cannot get anything done.
Barkley would still look pretty good as part of a Super Bowl contender’s backfield committee. Unfortunately, most Super Bowl contenders a) don’t have over $7 million lying around for a running back right now; and b) didn’t become Super Bowl contenders by blowing money and draft picks on other teams’ damaged-goods veterans.
So Barkley probably will not be traded. His guaranteed contract means he won’t get released. He’ll join Jones in a zombie backfield, a weekly reminder that the last regime failed so catastrophically that the new regime needs a full year for the radiation to decay to healthy levels before they clean up in earnest.
The 2022 New York Giants: At Least We’re Not Weirdos
The good news in East Rutherford is that Schoen and Daboll are doing the hard work. There are no delusions about the state of the roster or “compete while rebuilding” messages. There’s little bibble-babble about “culture change.” They have yet to lard the roster with Bills castoffs, give or take a Tyrod Taylor, the way other new showrunners do with veterans from their past teams.
Also, Gettleman is no longer baiting and trolling the press pool at every opportunity. Judge isn’t around to act like a paranoid conspiracy-theorist YouTuber. Garrett isn’t ordering reporters to call him “coach.” Schoen and Daboll don’t feel compelled to remind us of how smart they are, or how dumb they think we are, the way the other guys did.
Gettleman’s truly useful parting gift to the Giants was an extra first-round pick. The Giants will pick fifth and seventh overall in the 2022 draft. The fifth pick will almost certainly be spent on one of the top tackles in this draft class: Alabama’s Evan Neal, North Carolina State’s Ickey Ekwonu or Mississippi State’s Charles Cross. The seventh could be an edge rusher or cornerback. A quarterback is unlikely but not completely out of the question; per Grinding the Mocks, the Giants draft a quarterback in 2.8% of all mock drafts, though the engagement of a huge fan base with an edgy selection factor must be priced into that percentage.
The Giants could also trade down with the seventh pick in exchange for extra selections and a somewhat cheaper guaranteed first-round contract. Their Holy Grail might be an extra first-round pick next year, when quarterback prospects may be more plentiful and their cash flow more liquid. Such a move would make the 2022 Giants look even more like the 2021 Giants, but it would eventually help kick-start a true rebuilding effort.
Safely detonating Gettleman’s leftover contract explosives will take time. Managing Mara’s expectations will also likely be a delicate operation. The Giants may not get worse before they get better but only because it’s hard to get any worse than they were at the end of 2021. They’ll probably stay the same before they get better, but that doesn’t mean that Schoen and Daboll aren’t making a kind of progress.
Schoen and Daboll are like doctors who are finally giving it to us straight after years of quack remedies. Next year is gonna hurt, but they will do everything they can to not prolong the agony.
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