Friday Reader Mailbag: Free Agency, the Draft, and Player Improvements
As of now, NFL free agency is set to begin Monday with the annual negotiating window opening ahead of March 18, the official start of free agency. And naturally many of you have questions relating to free agency as well as the draft, so let's get right to it.
That is the expectation, but you never know with injuries, and because we’re still several months away, I can’t sit here and say for sure if he will or won’t be ready.
What I can tell you is when I last saw Connelly in the locker room at the end of last season, he was getting ready to run early in the new year, and he seemed to be moving around with no noticeable limp, so I took that as a very positive sign.
ACLs—heck all injuries—stink, but if there is a silver lining, it’s that Connelly will be almost a year removed from surgery, so the timing certainly is in his favor. I would imagine they'll take things slowly with him so that come camp, he's fully ready to go with no restrictions.
Theoretically, I think the Giants could afford both if they wanted, as, remember, usually the first year’s cap hit of a new multiyear, multimillion-dollar contract is low due to a lower base salary.
However, the more I think about it, the more doubts I have about the Giants going after Jadeveon Clowney.
Just in looking over the Giants' recent history, they've kind of moved away from players with injury histories. Unfortunately, Clowney has a rather lengthy injury history (though to be fair, he didn't show up on the injury report last year).
If you're going to spend big bucks on a player, I would think you'd want production and as clean of an injury history as possible. In my free-agent preview, I suggested Matt Judon of the Ravens (assuming he’s not tagged) as a potential pass rusher if Markus Golden becomes too expensive and if the Giants maybe want to go with a different direction.
From Jim S.
At Duke, Daniel Jones was able to move the ball with his feet as well as his arm. He was the best ground threat for the team. In contrast, with the Giants, he was rendered utterly one-dimensional. It was simply drop-back and remain in the pocket.
Pat Shurmur did nothing to open up the offense. NOTHING. Yes, there was a rare planned bootleg, but we never saw a designed QB draw, nor was there any real option scheme … a Raven-like Jones/Barkley option would have been most intriguing.
In short, Shurmur did nothing to take full advantage of Jones; instead, he was largely in a straight jacket all year. With the absence of any running attack for most of the season, it was a real problem, and might well have cost the team a couple of games.
It is interesting and surprising to me that nobody seems to have commented on this. I have listened to you on podcast and respect your views, so I would be most curious about your thoughts.
Hi Jim, and thanks for your letter. I wouldn't exactly say "nobody seems to have commented" on how Daniel Jones was deployed (and not just him, but also Saquon Barkley, Evan Engram, and others). I know I've written about it throughout the season as have others. It was a glaring problem.
But to your point, you're correct in that the offense didn't necessarily take advantage of what Daniel Jones does well. I’d like to see more designed roll-outs called, and I’m curious to see I they increase his reads in Year 2.
Overall I feel pretty good about what Jason Garrett might potentially bring to the offense and do for Jones, which is why I was so in favor of his hire. But in fairness, I was enthused by Shurmur’s hire, given what he did with Case Keenum in Minnesota. So time will tell.
Why does it have to be an either/or situation when you have a team coming off a 4-12 record? The Giants need both players--all players--who are returning need to be better than they were last year.
Baker showed progress toward the end of the year, and X-man was productive, given how he was used. I think he still has to improve on the run defense, and I think if he's working on getting stronger, that will happen. So I'm looking forward to progress being made by both players as well as the rest of the returning players.
Hey Oscar, how’s it going? Football is a team sport, so to say that one position is more important than the other is not doing the game justice. But I understand what you’re asking, and the higher priority, to me, is based on what the team has at each position.
Right now, the cupboard is BARE at offensive tackle. Nate Solder is under contract, and I believe the Giants have a couple of other guys (including Nick Gates, who by the way is a better guard) on the roster, but otherwise who is under contract at tackle that’s proven?
I think a legitimate case can be made for bringing in at least two new faces, one via free agency and one via the draft at tackle. The more I think about this, the more I think it might make sense to go after Jack Conklin (I was initially against it, but I’ve changed my mind).
If I’m the Giants, I pair Conklin with Solder as my starters, use a Day 2 pick on a young tackle, and use my first-round pick to address the defense. I get whoever I draft at offensive tackle ready this year to step in for Solder in 2021 as I would be surprised if he’s on the roster next year.
And I also would have that young tackle work as the jumbo blocker and be my first guy off the bench in case of injury.
This is an interesting question, and the answer is it depends. The draft carries a significant degree of risk to where you never know what’s going to happen with the board until the clock is running. But when you have a class that’s deep in different positions that happen to be a need, then I think you have more leeway to trade down if you want to.
I think Lady Luck smiled on the Giants this year. They have at least three, if not four teams behind them that need quarterbacks. The Giants, meanwhile, do not need a quarterback. They also have a deep offensive tackle class—one of the deepest in years—and there is some nice depth at linebacker and cornerback, which are two other glaring needs.
Then you add in that they don’t have their original third-round pick, which would have been a top-100 pick, and I think all the circumstances put together make it a no-brainer to trade down if—that’s the keyword, if—an offer representing stellar value is there.
Hey Gary, how are you? I don’t think gathering intel from one-time college teammates or opponents plays as big of a role as you might think. Maybe someone will ask in passing about a guy, but I doubt a player’s stance of a former teammate sways his draft grade.
If you think about it, most former college teammates are very complimentary about their opponents and former teammates, so that kind of feedback probably isn’t very objective.
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