Former New York Giants DB Logan Ryan Breaks Silence on Release

During an appearance on the Jim Rome Show, Logan Ryan admitted that he took his release from the Giants personal.

Author:
Patricia Traina
Publish date:
Jun 5, 2022 11:51 AM EDT

In this story:

During his two-season stay with the Giants, defensive back Logan Ryan appeared to be everything a team could want in a player: he was tough, a leader, a solid contributor, and a good representative of the team in the community.

So when Ryan received word that the new Giants regime was moving on from him, in essence firing him despite the massive dead money cap hit they’d have to swallow, Ryan was not happy.

“I took it personal, a little bit of a chip. I felt like I gave it all I had in New York, but I think new management,” Ryan said during a recent appearance on the Jim Rome show.

Teams that hire new general managers and/or head coaches usually weed out players favored by their predecessors in favor of their own guys—that’s nothing new. And that appears to have been the case with Ryan and, to an extent, with cornerback James Bradberry, the latter of whom was released for salary cap purposes after the Giants were unable to find a trade partner for the veteran cornerback.

Ryan and Bradberry quickly found new teams, Ryan with the Bucs, where he reunites with quarterback Tom Brady, with whom he played in New England, and Bradberry with the Eagles.

“Honestly, I don’t know what me, Bradberry, and these other guys could have done,’ Ryan said. “(The Giants) are looking in a different direction--that’s okay. I think we landed on our feet, and you have to keep moving forward because this is a business.”

In fairness to the Giants, it’s probably safe to wonder if they would have even pursued Ryan had safety Xavier McKinney not suffered a broken foot late in the team’s 2020 training camp.

While adding the veteran safety didn’t hurt, what hurt the Giants was that the old regime, already on shaky ground due to yet another losing season, restructured Ryan’s contract to find salary cap space after badly mismanaging the cap last year.

Having done the same thing with Bradberry, both players ended up with even higher cap hits for 2022, making it difficult for the new regime to carry.

Although both players’ combined dead money ($23,177,778) accounts for 71.2 percent of the team’s current dead money total, general manager Joe Schoen felt it necessary to rip the bandage off now and swallow the hit for the sake of long-term salary cap health.

Ryan, who noted that he has been through just about every situation in his NFL career, said that going through a general manager and head coaching change was a first for him.

“I was never part of a coach being fired, as well as the GM. So obviously a whole new regime over there, looking to go in a different direction,” he said.

As much as the decision hurt his pride, Ryan won’t be dwelling too much on the past.

“You got to keep moving forward because it’s business. That’s what they tell you,” he said.