Giants Earn High Grade for Trade of Leonard Williams

New York managed to not only clear salary cap space but also got premium draft picks in return for a player they likely had zero chance or interest in re-signing.

Author:
Brandon Olsen
Publish date:
Oct 31, 2023 7:31 PM EDT

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New York Giants

While there were plenty of potential trade pieces for the New York Giants to part ways with during this trade deadline, the only move they made was to send defensive lineman Leonard Williams to Seattle.

Williams had a career rejuvenation with the Giants after being a trade deadline deal from the cross-town Jets. Giants General Manager Joe Schoen deserves an "A" for this deal if you consider the value, the salary cap space gained, and that the big trend in football that aggressive general managers like Eagles’ Howie Roseman and Seahawks’ John Schneider are operating under is to trade draft picks for veteran talent to further your win-now push.

The Giants took on a large chunk of Williams’ remaining contract to get a second-round pick and a 2025 fifth-rounder. Had they simply let Williams walk after this year, at best, they might have received a fourth-round compensatory pick in 2025, so considering the Giants got a second-rounder in return, which they wouldn't have gotten as a comp pick (comp picks start in the third round), this is a tremendous deal for the Giants.

The Giants also went from being dead last in the league in salary cap space, having previously seen their total dwindle to about $508,000, to jumping into the middle of the pack, where according to Over the Cap's latest figures, New York now has $6,370,565 of cap space (17th in the league).

There were other moves that the Giants could, and possibly should, have made, but aside from the Williams trade, they remained stagnant. The primary names often discussed on social media include cornerback Adoree Jackson, running back Saquon Barkley, wide receivers Parris Campbell and Sterling Shepard, and safety Xavier McKinney.

Of those, Jackson was the most (and perhaps only) realistic candidate. Jackson is set to hit free agency after the season and is one of the highest-paid players on the roster, as well as the 14th highest-paid cornerback in the league.

Jul 29, 2022; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New York Giants defensive lineman Leonard Williams (99) laughs during training camp at Quest Diagnostics Training Facility.

The most likely landing spot probably would have been the Buffalo Bills. The difficult part about trading Jackson was that his contract would have needed to be restructured by 4 PM ET on Monday, so when that didn’t happen, he was a virtual guarantee not to be traded.

The Giants remained adamant that Barkley wouldn’t be traded, and Barkley also said he didn’t want to be traded. Despite Giants fans seemingly wanting to get as much value as possible while they can, it’s mutually agreed upon that Barkley should remain in New York for the time being, where the Giants will presumably look to reach some sort of middle ground with the running back after the season.

The issue that games like Madden have brought to fans is that they think it’s possible to trade every player they don’t want for draft picks. That’s where the Giants landed with keeping Sterling Shepard because even if they wanted to trade him (and it's not believed that they were looking to move him), he doesn’t hold value to opposing NFL teams. As much as Giants fans (myself included) love Shepard, he’s dealt with injuries his whole career and has been the least productive of an already unproductive receiver room.

The argument for Campbell is that with his youth and speed, there could at least be some team willing to take a swing, but why should an NFL team invest draft capital for someone who isn’t a game-changer this season when they can use that draft pick on someone who’s younger and can probably make the same impact in the future? Campbell would also need to be extended, and he’s not the type of player a team would trade for to get early extension talks going.

The last player often brought up was safety Xavier McKinney, and to that, I ask why. McKinney is set to hit free agency after this season, and a team could have tried to make a move for him to get early extension talks going, but I don’t understand why Giants fans often brought up his name as a trade candidate.

Yes, McKinney is in the final year of his contract, but assuming he's gone after this year is premature thinking. McKinney is one of the two Giants players to play every defensive snap this season. He is a solid, if not good, safety who’s still just 24 years old and one of the few Giants defenders able to function in multiple schemes.

If anyone came calling to check on McKinney, there's no doubt that the Giants' price would have been the discouraging factor, given his value and the fact that it also doesn’t make much sense to want to move him.

Even if the Giants don't re-sign McKinney after this year, they should land a decent compensatory pick they can use in the 2025 draft to go along with the extra fifth-round pick they acquired in the Leonard Williams trade.

There are few, if any, moves that the Giants should have made to bring in players at the deadline. You could argue that the team could have tried to match the Jaguars deal for offensive lineman Ezra Cleveland or the Lions’ deal for receiver Donovan Peoples-Jones. Even then, there’s no guarantee they would have gotten the same deal.

More importantly, though, considering where the Giants are in their rebuild, it probably wouldn't have been in their best interest to be buyers at the deadline anyway.