Nice little present for Giants’ fans, not to mention the Ryan family, when the Giants announced that FS Logan Ryan had been resigned to a 3-year, $31M contract extension, with $20M guaranteed on Christmas Eve. It actually was a little bit of surprise in that while Ryan has been one of the unquestioned leaders of the Giants defensive resurgence this fall, it looked like he might be expendable with the emergence of Xavier McKinney, the team’s second-round pick this year who spent most of the season on IR with a foot injury. Ryan will be 30 next fall and really isn’t fast enough anymore to hold up in man coverage, at least when lined up opposite a WR. However, no questioning the impact Ryan had this fall. He’s second on the team in tackles, while chipping in a number of big plays including a sack, an INT, 8 other tackles for loss and 3 forced fumbles. And that’s not counting the veteran intangibles he clearly brought to the table ncluding his intensity, work ethic and leadership skills.
What it means for the Giants safety rotation: For starters, and of course this implies everything else being equal – that going forward the Giants should have one of the better safety groups in the NFL with Ryan, McKinney and Jabrill Peppers. For the first time in what feels like forever they have some legit NFL quality depth in their safety patrol. It also gives them options to use a lot of 3-safety schemes. For example, one could certainly see Peppers lining up as the second LB especially in passing situations. That would allow the Giants to get 6 DBs on the field in those situations. Bottom line is that its mostly all good.
What it means for the Giants cap: That’s a somewhat tougher call simply because the cap situation is going to be very fluid in 2021. On the one hand, it is pretty much a given that the cap will be lower – if not significantly lower – next year and the Giants have some major pieces to be resigned starting with defensive linemen Leonard Williams and Dalvin Tomlinson. Indeed, it is almost imperative that they resign Williams because of a) all the craziness to get this far including first the trade and then the tag; b) how well he’s played this year and c) the hole they’d be left with in their pass rush if he did leave. And the deal with Ryan may indicate that the Giants priorities in free agency this winter are primarily to get their own resigned. Time will tell.
In fact, the only area in which one would think the Giants might look to bring in a high-priced free agent from outside likely is at WR if players like Kenny Golladay or Allen Robinson among others were available. Of course, the Giants could also address the lack of a true #1 receiver in the draft which would significantly alter the need at the position, although truth be told adding a Golladay AND a player like DeVonta Smith in the draft wouldn’t be the worst thing a team could do this off-season. The Giants also desperately need to add as many as 2-3 veteran corners that can cover, but they need not be high-priced elite free agents. They already have the #1 guy in James Bradberry and what they need are some other competent-to-good players who know how to play those game and one can usually find those types of guys among more mid-range FAs. Again time will tell!
Why Rousseau over Parsons?: After posting our pre-Christmas mock draft last week, we had a number of questions why we had the Giants taking Miami DE Greg Rousseau with the 10th pick overall with star Penn State LB Micah Parsons sill on the board. Its a really good question. In the end, it came down to those two guys for the Giants pick. Parsons is a impact defensive player with terrific physical tools and elite intensity. However, we aren’t totally convinced that he’d necessarily be that great a fit with the Giants. True, he’s a prototype 3-4 OLB and while the Giants are nominally a 3-4 team, the fact is that with other teams trotting out multiple receiver sets as their base offense, the Giants are actually in a 4-2 D pretty much two-thirds of the time. That means the Giants’ OLBs actually end up having to move up and play DE the majority of the snaps. And Parsons isn’t all that big at around 6-3, 245 which would make him a very small DE. Either that or the Giants slide him into one of the inside LB positions when they shift into a 4-2. I suspect Parsons would be really good there, but its unlikely he’d have a game-changing pass-rushing role there.
Meanwhile, pass-rushing DEs who can impact are really hard to find. Indeed, one could probably make the case that they are about as hard to find as top QBs. Problem is that a good DE really isn’t going to help you all that much. Bottom line is that you really need someone with elite skills if you want a game changing edge rusher. And like QBs you pretty much need to find one early in the draft. And that’s why we went with Rousseau. No question he’s raw with only one year at the collegiate level. But what a year as he posted 15.5 sacks – second in the country to Chase Young – in 13 games in 2019. And no one else in this year’s draft class was close either that year or this year. In the end, though, we really have no idea how the Giants will approach the situation, although we do believe if they were to tell you the truth they’d say we’d really like one of those great young receivers if they were available when the Giants make their first pick. As we say time will tell!
Enjoy the game tomorrow!
