Tuck's comments this morning regarding FA (not unexpected)

where tuck wasn't touched off the line and got a sack or two. Simple.

debate that Tuck has declined. There is no way he earned his money the last 3 years.

Am I a fan of Tuck U-Bet!
Do I want him back. Yes! I do but the fact is he is not the player his stat line indicates.

So botton line is I won't overpay for a player who has an injury history as long as Justins and is past his prime and on the decline.

In comment 11483836 kmed said:

Quote:

where tuck wasn't touched off the line and got a sack or two. Simple.

A sack or two? Which is it? You said a "few times." Basically diminishing what he did (I wonder how many other DE's accumulated 2 or more sacks against those hapless Redskins BTW). So is "a few times" really mean one time? Three times? Talking out of your ass? Which is it?

In comment 11483852 Vegas Steve said:

Quote:

debate that Tuck has declined. There is no way he earned his money the last 3 years. Am I a fan of Tuck U-Bet! Do I want him back. Yes! I do but the fact is he is not the player his stat line indicates. So botton line is I won't overpay for a player who has an injury history as long as Justins and is past his prime and on the decline.

Vegas Steve - I'm a Giants fan first. I don't want us overpaying for Tuck at all. But the idea that he sucked last year (until he played bad teams at the end of the year? WTF?) or was "useless" is so obtuse that I'd love to for someone to back up these statements with real #'s. And telling me "one sack in 11 games" isn't enough when every other statistic is irrelevant to that same person.

Tuck is a "name" and had a pretty decent sack total this past season. That's likely enough to get overpaid by some other team with alot of cap space and no pass rush.

I think it will take a pretty significant hometown discount for him to be back next season.

As a fan, i'm good either way. I appreciate everything he's done but his best days are behind him. I'd like to see Moore get a real shot.

.

Too inconsistent, too injury prone, too old.

He'll be lucky to get a single offer over the vet min, and it won't be MUCH over that.

get a decent amount over the veteran minimum

on reputation and his "11 sacks". DE's have lots of value in the NFL, I'm guessing somewhere in the $5 million range.

but this team is moving on and will be in transition for a year or two. I suspect FA will be a wake up call and a little surprising to a 31 y.o. DE with health issues. Tuck may get a 2-3 year offer at his max value, but that's it. Most teams aren't going to gamble after that age. So that's the window he's looking at.

My personal choice would be to find a way to keep Tuck for those 2-3 years, but reality says the price may be too high (there are some crazy spenders out there). Foundation, respect, knowledge transfer -- these could be totally invaluable to the Giants during a transition. From a purely management standpoint I look at JPP and guys like Moore for whom Tuck is an absolute anchor. JPP is awesome (when he's playing of course) and Moore can clearly be something special with the right mentorship. Tuck can be a foundation for fundamentals, basics and respect.

Here's the deal. The Giants have always treated JT with complete respect and compensation. Tuck is not the type of player who will be an also-ran for some other team for 2-3 years for some negligible difference in compensation. If it's a huge difference, he'll go. Let him. Here's my bet and I stand by it. If Tuck signs elsewhere for 2-3 years and is not the #1 or 2 honcho in his new team's defense, he will come back and want to retire as a Giant -- even if it's a formality.

There's money and there's money. But when the net change is negligible, it comes down to pride.

But the past is the beet indicator of the future and to me that says he'll continue to have nagging health issues and will probably only be above average sporadically. This is a "better a year early than a year late" situations. I think they have too many holes to fill to give Tuck the 7-9 mill guaranteed he's likely to seek.

try to keep Tuck or add that money to the Linval Joseph fund? The answer is obvious.

Instead of accepting the Giants x, he goes out to see if someone offers x+y and then comes back to the Giants asking for x+y-n.