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Six Offseason Topics to Follow About New York Giants

It the first weekend without football since August and everyone has the shakes.   Yes, withdraw is a tough thing to handle when you wake up and realizes you have a few months until the Giants are on the clock.

Over the next few months the Off-Season will be littered with rumors and interesting conversations amongst league people.   For the New York Giants they cut Victor Cruz and Rashad Jennings today.  There will be 6 major story lines to follow after today.

  • 1. Left Tackle – Will the Giants invest in a new Left Tackle after drafting one just two years ago.  A week removed from the Super Bowl and the social buzz has begun if the New York Giants will make a play for a legit, well seasoned Left Tackle.  The conversation has surrounded Ereck Flowers moving to right tackle or possible guard before he gets Eli Manning killed.   Andrew Whitworth, the Bengals Left Tackle seems like the best fit here, but is 35 years old and makes 9 MM a year. Riley Reiff from Detroit is a close runner up at 28 yrs. old and makes 8MM a year.
  • 2. Victor Cruz – The hometown hero was cut today.   There are no updates if he chose not to restructure, if they cut him out right or if they plan to bring him back when the dust has settled.  The Broncos already showing interest.  Either way, the Giants are in need a speed receiver on the outside that comes cheap..aka Jerry Reese style.  King has some speed, but there must be a reason why he hasn’t caught on with 4 other teams.  The chatter will be about King vs. Lewis vs. Pryor vs. Boldin vs. Harvin vs. Ginn Jr..and so on.
  • 3. Running Backs – Shane Vereen and Paul Perkins are the only two running backs under contract.   Rashad Jennings has been cut to free up some cap room and Orleans Darkwa is a Restricted Free Agent(RFA).  The Adrian Peterson talk will have some legs for a few weeks and then thankfully die. There will be some Eddie Lacey and Darren McFadden talk and throw in some Christian McCaffrey buzz.
  • 4. DRC – Did anyone see the Giants Packers Playoff game?  DRC went down and Aaron Rodgers went to work.  End of story.  DRC is a very valuable player to the future of this defense.  The offseason will be full of pay cut, restructure and cap conversations around the pro bowl cornerback.   To quote former Giants Running Back, Brandon Jacob on Twitter today, “Called me selfish, but I took a pay cut for my team to get better”.
  • 5. QB – Do the Giants draft a quarterback.   Ryan Nassib is a Free Agent.  He has been paid between 450,000 and 650,000 a year to have thrown a total of 10 NFL passes.  Eli Manning says he can start somewhere, a team somewhere might find out but it won’t be Big Blue.  The 2017 draft is full of average quarterbacks.  So do they Giants waste another draft pick on a quarterback, or do they sign a Matt Schaub or Josh McCown for vet minimum.
  • 6. JPP – The Giants should sign one of the best defensive free agents on the market, again!  Everyone knew this day would come.  While No. 90 seems to get injured every year, he is still going to have big money demands.   How Big?   Olivia Vernon big! The Cruz/Jennings departure saved 10M against the cap.   This is a major step to resigning JPP.   I’m not sure the Giants brass goes over 9MM a year over 4 years.

@NYGiantsRush