That is not a rhetorical question, that is a legitimate one that I am not sure of the correct answer. But, if so and if this was my money, I would be angry at DG and PS. Can someone please remind me, we owed Eli only 5 million if we cut him after last year, am I right about that?
free agency is what it is - most of the time you are overpaying for guys past their prime or with some other defect. Especially if they are only getting 1 year deals. I'm not saying FA is useless or the cap isn't important - both are, but when we are talking about the very specific parameters of a guy with just 1 year left on his deal and slim pickings last March when the decision had to get made, the impact of what could have been is being dramatically overstated.
there's hypocrisy and second guessing no matter what gets done bc just as half of the fanbase thinks they should have cut Eli to save money half thinks spending money to sign Golden Tate was a disaster, and you can bet there's overlap between the 2 groups.
The point isn't really whether Eli played at a journeyman level or not - that part is 100% irrelevant. The point is that for a 2-game gig that ended up 0-2, even the cheapest, least talented journeyman would still have gotten us to 0-2. You don't have to blame Eli to accept that he just couldn't overcome the team that surrounded him.
Ironically, we may actually have that cheapest, least talented journeyman on the roster already, but that's a separate conversation entirely.
As if we have our hands on the cash!
Don't be obtuse. How about "we" as in we are discussing the way the team we follow chooses to manage their salary cap?
The whole "it's not your money" angle is so fucking juvenile. It's a salary cap league. The dollars matter in terms of the quality of the roster. That's why people are discussing it, not because anyone honestly believes they're the ones signing the players' checks.
^^^^ THIS!!!
I've said this before, and I find it somewhat surprising that people don't get it, but it seems to be an undeniable fact that: Understanding the ramifications of good or bad salary cap management is a football IQ test.
That said, I'm not sure that there were good alternatives to Eli that would have cost significantly less against the cap. At least Eli was just 1 year.
Signing Beckham to trade him... Colossally stupid.
There was a point in the off-season where the Giants were in a position to have about $95 million available against the cap for the 2020 season. The team has burned down $35 million of that, and I'm not sure what was gotten for it...
Golden Tate
Marcus Golden
Antoine Bethea
A Solder restructure
Rid ourselves of Beckham
Rid ourselves of Vernon
Doesn't seem like $35 million in value to me. But what the hell do I know.
The Giants have basically done what people asked them to do.
- Turned over the roster and jettisoned the malcontents
- Drafted Eli's successor and am giving him real action this season
- Shored up the OL
Now, the discussion boils down to how they did it and the timeline they've used. And you still have the usual suspects saying Gettleman needs to be fired for this travesty - a travesty they wanted rectified and that he's taken steps to do just that.
But the way this place works oftentimes is that he just can't be given props. He paid too much for Eli, traded Beckham and Vernon (who people couldn't wait to run out of town), and now Jones is the starter in Week 3, meaning we thought we could compete this year and wasted a whole 6 weeks of Jones gaining "experience".
So he's basically done what people asked - just not the exact way they'd have liked.
A real tough crowd to please.
The Giants have basically done what people asked them to do.
- Turned over the roster and jettisoned the malcontents
- Drafted Eli's successor and am giving him real action this season
- Shored up the OL
Now, the discussion boils down to how they did it and the timeline they've used. And you still have the usual suspects saying Gettleman needs to be fired for this travesty - a travesty they wanted rectified and that he's taken steps to do just that.
But the way this place works oftentimes is that he just can't be given props. He paid too much for Eli, traded Beckham and Vernon (who people couldn't wait to run out of town), and now Jones is the starter in Week 3, meaning we thought we could compete this year and wasted a whole 6 weeks of Jones gaining "experience".
So he's basically done what people asked - just not the exact way they'd have liked.
A real tough crowd to please.
Been saying that for weeks. Can't win. If you start a bunch of 1st and 2nd year players, it will be ugly to start. Let's see what happens by mid-season. Do they improve(I thought there was slight improvement against Buffalo)? Or do they continue to look bad?
Everyone knows where Eli’s skill level currently is. Why bring him back and subject him to this season on a bunch of hopes and prayers that this team could compete?
Whatever, what’s done is done.
If Jones is a star, he will be looked upon fondly.
If he busts, he will be run out of town.
Odds are Jones will be somewhere in the middle and we will continue to argue over stuff like this for the foreseeable future.
The Giants have basically done what people asked them to do.
- Turned over the roster and jettisoned the malcontents
- Drafted Eli's successor and am giving him real action this season
- Shored up the OL
Now, the discussion boils down to how they did it and the timeline they've used. And you still have the usual suspects saying Gettleman needs to be fired for this travesty - a travesty they wanted rectified and that he's taken steps to do just that.
But the way this place works oftentimes is that he just can't be given props. He paid too much for Eli, traded Beckham and Vernon (who people couldn't wait to run out of town), and now Jones is the starter in Week 3, meaning we thought we could compete this year and wasted a whole 6 weeks of Jones gaining "experience".
So he's basically done what people asked - just not the exact way they'd have liked.
A real tough crowd to please.
Listing everything he did and then assuming it's what "people wanted" is a lite self fulfilling.
Maybe it's more accurate to say some people wanted some combination of those things, and others wanted few or none of them.
I generally like what Gettleman has done, but I also think his mistakes are real head scratchers.
As a fan with basically no skills in football management and limited knowledge, it's frustrating to be right about this. This one was a clear as day call.
that is terrible business
Draft picks are valuable because they are free. If you have to pay 16-20 mil for them you might as well use that money to sign a guy who you know can play.
We could have easily gotten a 1st round pick for OBJ in the summer of 2018. Is 20 mil good value for peppers and a 3?
A GM's job involves a good bit of foresight, and so far DG is showing to be lacking in that department.
You have to look at the options. If you don't sign him, you can lose him for nothing. If he isn't signed and holds out, you get pennies on the dollar for him.
If you sign him and then trade him, you can get an adequate return.
Now, do I think that was the intention when he was signed? not exactly. But I do think that the brass knew a signed Beckham would be easier and return more than an unsigned OBJ who could be a wild card.
But you'd swear signing him was a colossal mistake
A GM's job involves a good bit of foresight, and so far DG is showing to be lacking in that department.
But ron, we got better value for Beckham with him being signed. What do you think he gets if he holds out or worse yet, played another year and left for nothing?
I think they'd be screaming, "But we could have gotten a 1st rounder and a player for him!!"
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OBJ's behavior last year was not hard to see coming. Personally I dont think the stuff that is verified is all that bad but understand why others think it is. The unverified stuff is a bit more concerning but I'm not gonna kill a guy for putting himself on the shelf with an injury he could maybe play through in a lost season.
A GM's job involves a good bit of foresight, and so far DG is showing to be lacking in that department.
But ron, we got better value for Beckham with him being signed. What do you think he gets if he holds out or worse yet, played another year and left for nothing?
I disagree but its all conjecture. I think we could have easily gotten a 1 for him before signing him and that would have been a much better deal than a 1, 3, peppers and 20 mil out the door.
And unless you think he signed him with the exact purpose of trading him, I don't see how you can not call it a mistake or lack or foresight.
But as I said, I don't think we will see eye to eye on this one and thats fine.
Gettleman has in effect chosen the draft as a priority. He sold JPP and Beckham for draft picks, to contribute to a scenario where he's had four first round picks and eight top 100 picks in the last 2 years.
The price he's paid is dead money, and it's been nontrivial - 70M over the last two years.
Those 8 picks have to become the foundation of the next championship window, if not, yikes.
but nothing changed, Obj was in 2018 who he has been his entire career
If you are of the belief we weren't going to compete, then just ridding the team of players who wouldn't contend and who absorbed a ton of cap is still a direction he likely had to take.
Even if Gettleman took the dead money to be in a much better cap situation - we have a much more fluid method for building the roster.
If the majority of those picks turn out to be solid players with the additions coming from the cap room we will have available, we will be a better team. A much better team.
And a lot of that rests with Jones.
Had they dealt OBJ off his surgery year without a contract they would have gotten less for him in picks and had Gettleman sold him low without ever playing a game during his tenure it would have been moronic.
Hopefully that will pay off next season, and they have a plan for that money.
He'll be lucky to last the season there, and they might actually be worse than us.
When he can put up two pretty bad performances and people see it as an improvement, that's saying a lot.
He'll be lucky to last the season there, and they might actually be worse than us.
When he can put up two pretty bad performances and people see it as an improvement, that's saying a lot.
That's fair - I know week 1 he got some positive reviews, I haven't followed him closely but you are right, for him an improvement is not being on the backpages as the reason his team lost which is a very low bar.
For the average player, that was terrible - but I think most people saw washington with a 17-0 lead and translated that into meaning flowers was good.
If you are of the belief we weren't going to compete, then just ridding the team of players who wouldn't contend and who absorbed a ton of cap is still a direction he likely had to take.
You seem to take issue with people going hard in the paint on Gettleman, but this statement is exactly why many are finding fault with him (forgive me for cropping, I don't think doing so twists your words and it certainly isn't my intention to do so).
Eli fits the exact description, but he got a pass. It was a sub-optimal path given what he was doing elsewhere.
Replacing a QB in a transition is much more important than the other moves that have been made. I know people don't like the timing and they rail about the cap hit this season, but cutting eli still had consequences to the cap as well, and if Jones was or is terrible, that isn't a great plan to have in place either.
People are like "We should have started Lauletta or a $7M retread and we could have lost with them just as easily. While that might be true, it doesn't send a very good message.
Replacing a QB in a transition is much more important than the other moves that have been made. I know people don't like the timing and they rail about the cap hit this season, but cutting eli still had consequences to the cap as well, and if Jones was or is terrible, that isn't a great plan to have in place either.
People are like "We should have started Lauletta or a $7M retread and we could have lost with them just as easily. While that might be true, it doesn't send a very good message.
I personally think the stuff about 'the message' is highly overplayed relative to the $17M difference (yes, ostensibly $17M comes down if you pay a cheap replacement, but it also goes back up when you then pass on the Golden Tates and Antoine Betheas of the world).
Given the quick hook, which I do absolutely give them credit for as you suggest, whatever bad message may have been case is quickly rectified by getting the exciting, highly-drafted rookie on the field and show that the upswing is starting in earnest.
Definitely a matter of opinion, I just don't see how it's fair to act like those finding significant fault with the approach are out-of-line or absurd.
You have to look at the options. If you don't sign him, you can lose him for nothing. If he isn't signed and holds out, you get pennies on the dollar for him.
If you sign him and then trade him, you can get an adequate return.
Now, do I think that was the intention when he was signed? not exactly. But I do think that the brass knew a signed Beckham would be easier and return more than an unsigned OBJ who could be a wild card.
But you'd swear signing him was a colossal mistake
That's because signing him was a colossal mistake. Instead of signing him, how about trading him after 2017? We've already heard he wanted to do it but was talked out of it by Shurmur.
The most frustrating aspect of BBI is the posters who will support the Giants' decision making even when it clearly sucks.
The idea that he would just "walk" ignores the significant leverage the Giants had. He had one more year on his contract plus the franchise tag.
If you want to swing your dick around do it in private in negotiations, don't sign a guy, give them much more significant leverage then swing your dick around in public and think he will fall in line then.
Reese and Abrams made an absolute mess of the cap. Gettleman has been doing the right thing by taking all those cap hits and getting them off the books.
I think the quality of players taken in the draft has improved dramatically under DG.
If you look at my posts, I have often stated that my expectations are low. I expected to lose this year, and while I expect improvement next year, I doubt it will be a playoff team even then. And that would be ok if everything else was going right.
However, I do believe that DG is starting to create his own mess the cap. While I understand that it's hard to part with a talent like Beckham, there were plenty of signs that signing him was a bad idea. There was significant internal discord about that signing as it turns out, and the team knew a lot more about him that we did. Some of that stuff has now leaked out. Given what they knew, they should have traded him before signing him. I'm sure there was a way to make it happen. Get him on the field in preseason, let people see that he was ready to play, and move him and let the new team sign him (the return would have been fine). Signing Golden, Martin, Olgetree, Tate, Omameh, Stewart, Bethea, and Solder have all had negative cap consequences and have not brought a return on investment. The team still sucks.
Those signings are indicative of a lack of commitment and focus on the rebuild. They want to sell us all that the team can win now by making these signings, when really they can't. The team can lose just as well without any of those guys and their cap hits. If it were not for these bad contracts the Giants would have a lot more money against the cap next year. And instead of restructuring Solder and taking cap from the future, they could be rolling over cap money from this year to next. Had the team focused on the rebuild and committed to it, the team would be in better shape going forward. Instead they keep taking half measures and that is on DG.
I won't kill DG & the the rest of management for Eli, I agree with you that cutting him would be a bad message. He has been the leader of this team for 15 years, he has brought 2 SBs, he works hard, he is a solid citizen. There has to be some reward for all that, he has earned the right to play out this contract. But of course, this is the last year for him, no consideration to resigning.
We will see if Jones is the real deal.
I don't think he behaved as if the team was rebuilding going into last year. A huge flaw in self-scouting, in my view. I see the full tear-down this year. But I don't see the OL as 'fixed' - it isn't a good unit yet and a ton of resources have been thrown at it. I don't see what DG has done well as GM and see a lot of shit.
Hopefully that will pay off next season, and they have a plan for that money.
Let's hope so. Let's also keep in mind that DG already pissed away a third of the cap space we could have had next offseason with contracts handed out, restructured, or traded away this year.
I understand that his goal (or maybe his mandate) is to build the team to compete while he rebuilds the roster's core. Flying the plane while you're building it is not easy, of course. And I hope that once DG has his foundation built that we start to see some more prudent cap management, but until we see that, I see nothing wrong with some level of skepticism.
A lot of the same cap management missteps that we're seeing under Gettleman were also regular occurrences under Reese. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I think Abrams' approach to the cap leaves quite a bit of room for improvement.
Overall, the management of the cap hasn't been good, and the only thing we know is that the group of them has failed.
I personally suspect that much of it has to do with the 'mandate' that you hinted at. There's little doubt in my mind that some willingness from the top to lean into the turn 2-3 seasons ago would have us further along the road at this point.
I think FMiC had reservations about Solder...?
In the end, if the GM can't sell the owner on his vision. Then that's on the GM.
In the end, if the GM can't sell the owner on his vision. Then that's on the GM.
This is a critical concept, particularly when it comes to Eli. If Mara was bent on keeping Eli, then it was incumbent on Gettleman and Shurmur to convince him why that was a bad idea. Mara isn't a bad guy, nor is he stupid. I think he could be convinced by a well reasoned argument.
Gettleman and Shurmur failed to do that. Mara's failure has been in surrounding himself with people ill-equipped to construct and lead a team in the modern NFL.
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But in the end, I think Mara can be sold on a course of action. He's not Snyder.
In the end, if the GM can't sell the owner on his vision. Then that's on the GM.
This is a critical concept, particularly when it comes to Eli. If Mara was bent on keeping Eli, then it was incumbent on Gettleman and Shurmur to convince him why that was a bad idea. Mara isn't a bad guy, nor is he stupid. I think he could be convinced by a well reasoned argument.
Gettleman and Shurmur failed to do that. Mara's failure has been in surrounding himself with people ill-equipped to construct and lead a team in the modern NFL.
Agree 100% with Mcl here and am pretty much with Terps here as well but holding out hope it’s not true so we don’t have to go through another tear down in a couple years.
And in our case, the compete thing was a colossal misstep so take the heat...
This is a critical concept, particularly when it comes to Eli. If Mara was bent on keeping Eli, then it was incumbent on Gettleman and Shurmur to convince him why that was a bad idea. Mara isn't a bad guy, nor is he stupid. I think he could be convinced by a well reasoned argument.
Gettleman and Shurmur failed to do that. Mara's failure has been in surrounding himself with people ill-equipped to construct and lead a team in the modern NFL.
Here's the problem. While I can't prove it beyond circumstantial evidence, I believe DG and PS were hired largely because they sold Mara on their pro-Eli-ness. Which I think was exactly what Mara wanted to here. So they sort of boxed themselves in.
Hell, I'd argue this decision to sit Eli was possibly Mara's because Eli's record hit the 500 mark. And with the way the season is spiraling downward, keeping it at 500 was likely 0%.
Something to chew on...
The idea that he would just "walk" ignores the significant leverage the Giants had. He had one more year on his contract plus the franchise tag.
If you want to swing your dick around do it in private in negotiations, don't sign a guy, give them much more significant leverage then swing your dick around in public and think he will fall in line then.