James Bradberry and Adoree’ Jackson are the two most expensive starting cornerbacks NYG have had on the same field at the same time (not including hybrid DB Logan Ryan from a year ago). They did not earn their paychecks respectively. While they avoided the big-play touchdowns, they were often a step or two too late in coverage as the DEN offense torched them on 3rd and 4th downs. Grading corners can be tough because opportunities are so few, but at the end of the day, they were outplayed by the young DEN pass catchers.
There is no sugar coating the fact James Bradberry played his worst game as a Giant. Had it not been for his interception in the 4th quarter, a fantastic, high-level play on the ball, he would have finished on the “Dud” list. Terry McLaurin dominated him from start to finish. He allowed a touchdown and was flagged twice, once for holding and once for pass interference.
The ATL receivers are not a good matchup for James Bradberry. I said earlier in the week that it may suit NYG well to have the Giants top defensive back shadow rookie “tight end” Kyle Pitts all afternoon rather than stick to the crossing route-heavy ATL receivers. He allowed a touchdown and two first downs. He did have an impressive pass break up in the first quarter. He didn’t have a poor game, but certain types of receivers (quick-footed, change of direction guys) give him major issues.
James Bradberry had a big interception and 2 tackles, however he was burned deep and also missed a tackle. While the interception was a needed big play for both him and the defense respectively, I am still a bit worried about the amount of separation we are seeing receivers get on him.
There are certain receivers James Bradberry can excel against. The quicker, more change-of-direction based pass catchers are simply not a good matchup for him. Lamb is one of those guys. He torched Bradberry for a long touchdown and forced a pass interference on a 3rd-and-3 near the end zone later in the game. Bradberry also dropped an interception. A poor game for him that added to his poor overall start for the season.
James Bradberry was solid, as he matched up against Robert Woods for most of the afternoon and kept him to a season-low 2 catches. Bradberry also broke up 2 passes.
James Bradberry wasn’t tested much in this one and still came up with the top defensive play of the afternoon. His interception was a dagger in CAR’s growing momentum. He avoided a disaster by recovering his own fumble on the play.
James Bradberry had 4 tackles, 1 PD, and fumble recovery. They matched him up on tight end Travis Kelce, the top player at his position in the league, and the cornerback neutralized him for most of the night. This was one of the least productive games in Kelce’s career, and while it wasn’t just Bradberry, he was a huge part of it.
Bradberry had a couple of key stops on 3rd down, but he was also beat for a touchdown on the opening drive and was luckily not exposed in the box score on two 2 others. Carr overthrew Darren Waller on a play where Bradberry was 5+ yards behind the tight end up the seam. Bradberry was also beat later on by Zay Jones badly, but Carr pulled the ball down and scrambled too early to see it. Bradberry was also flagged for illegal contact and missed a tackle. Poor game for him.
The James Bradberry vs. Mike Evans battle has always been a fun-watch dating back to the cornerback’s days in CAR. They split success and fails down the middle but, on this night, Evans got the win. Bradberry allowed a touchdown, a 3rd-down conversion, missed 2 tackles, and was nearly beat on a separate touchdown by Breshad Perriman but a drop helped out NYG’s top corner who is due to make over 12% of the team’s salary cap next season.
James Bradberry had a quiet game. 3 tackles and was rarely targeted, allowing just 2 short completions.
James Bradberry was beat on two 3rd downs and allowed a touchdown while in zone coverage. He added 2 tackles, one of which was a nice play and big hit. Teams seem to be attacking him more and more underneath and intermediate.
James Bradberry wasn’t targeted often. He had 1 tackle and 1 pass break up.
This position group was beat up a bit by the Covid situation. That said, it was an admirable effort overall and I came away impressed. CeeDee Lamb, Amari Cooper, and Michael Gallup combined for just 90 yards on 11 catches. James Bradberry was on his game, breaking up 2 passes and showing quality deep coverage.
James Bradberry and Jarren Williams handled nearly all of the snaps at outside corner. They excelled early on showing tight coverage, but it wavered in the second half. They were getting burned up and down, left, and right. Bradberry was inches away from an interception.
James Bradberry had a solid game in a tough matchup against Allen Robinson. He had an interception and broke up 2 passes.
Adoree’ Jackson and James Bradberry both played the entire game. They were torched early on as Terry McLaurin made them look silly via route running and playing the ball in the air. They settled down a bit with WAS leading for nearly the entire game, they weren’t challenged much. These 2 will almost certainly be back for the 2022 season. Not a bad duo, but a very expensive one.
He simply wasn't a part of this teams future. Wish him well, good Giant given the circumstances...but onward.
That said, the more I watch what the Giants are doing this year, the more I think this is a tank-for-a-QB draft pick year. If you think of it that way, moving on from Ryan and Bradberry makes way more sense.
He did in 2020.
Eric, will you be posting your draft/UDFA recap as in prior years?
Ah the DJ analysis.
If the team is bad, all of the individuals players are probably really good, but look bad because of the other parts.
So only a select few teams in the league have a roster where you can actually evaluate individual players since they need to have 10 solid guys around them?
"The Giants had a lot of legitimate trade offers for James Bradberry but those teams couldn't come to terms on a new deal" ~@RapSheet
Bradberry has an inexperienced agent and this was the type of offseason where that may have hurt him. He clearly overplayed whatever leverage he thought he had.
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your own judgment, but he wasn't worth the money last year.
Eric, will you be posting your draft/UDFA recap as in prior years?
Not sure.
Odd take, since often times the corners were playing so far off the pass rush didn't have time to get there either.
And again, I refer you to 2020.
JM was viewed as the player and contract most asset marketable, given his play, age, contract, and openness about wanting to play for a contender or winner.
Deals were worked out, pending restructures his own agent couldn’t/ wouldn’t agree to.
No other heavily laden contract is cuttable because the dead money outweighs the contract salary, or is at least a near wash. And you do need SOME current players for ‘22 to play with the newer players.
Whether victim , or contributor to this situation, can be argued.
Unfortunately, there’s more of this to come in ‘23 and ‘24.
It’s the price of ownership gross mismanagement.
That said, I feel that Jackson was as bad or worse, and Jackson's soft play and business decisions also screwed the season.
I find it weird how people accept rebuild but then clamor how we need an overpaid CB, with somewhat declining returns on the field.
Bradberry had to go for the $ reasons and long term growth. He wasn't a huge liability BUT, he wasn't worth the cost and isn't going to improve his play over the newt couple of years.
i believe this is the core of the issue - and the nyg rightfully put a value on that and stuck to it.
Interesting.. So you are also saying with increased pressure and no time to throw we can help overcome deficiencies in CB play. So we did improve our secondary and pass defense by adding pass rush.
What do we have in the guys already on the roster? Maybe something, maybe nothing but I think we need to give them an extended look and real opportunities to improve.
Rodarius Williams
Jarren Williams
Aaron Robinson
CorDale Flott
A much better PFF grade, and if you don't like them, that's fair. Let's do advanced numbers.
Jackson: 1 INT, 52.1% comp, 4.8 YPA, 2 TD's allowed, 69 rating, 252 air yards allowed, 101 YAC (353 total), 8.8 missed tackle percentage
Bradberry: 4 INT, 61.7% comp, 7.4 YPA, 7 TD's allowed, 93 rating, 555 air yards allowed, 293 YAC (848 total), 21.7 missed tackle percentage
Jackson was better. By far.
Jarren Williams is a street FA.
Holmes and Robinson have shown flashes and I personally like Flott, but unless they want the defense to go back to looking like Bettcher's D in 2019 which was non-competitive they'd be smart to bring in some veteran depth and both CB and S.
A much better PFF grade, and if you don't like them, that's fair. Let's do advanced numbers.
Jackson: 1 INT, 52.1% comp, 4.8 YPA, 2 TD's allowed, 69 rating, 252 air yards allowed, 101 YAC (353 total), 8.8 missed tackle percentage
Bradberry: 4 INT, 61.7% comp, 7.4 YPA, 7 TD's allowed, 93 rating, 555 air yards allowed, 293 YAC (848 total), 21.7 missed tackle percentage
Jackson was better. By far.
the issue with Jackson is injuries. he's battled them before and if he goes down the corner back room is a lot worse than whatever Wink's DB room looked like in BAL at the end of their season last year. that aspect of reliability was bradberry's biggest selling point.
Jarren Williams is a street FA.
Holmes and Robinson have shown flashes and I personally like Flott, but unless they want the defense to go back to looking like Bettcher's D in 2019 which was non-competitive they'd be smart to bring in some veteran depth and both CB and S.
Not sure how this is relevant.
When I criticized the signing of Nate Solder, I was told, "We had no choice. He's better than the alternative."
This is loser thinking. It's better to go with the worse player than to dramatically overpay for a player that doesn't help a losing team win games.
FYI, anyone worried about Bradberry to Eagles, I cannot fathom a worse matchup for Bradberry than Kadarius Toney. I think Toney would be open all day long.
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Rodarious Williams had 4 nfl targets before tearing his ACL and all 4 got caught. He was a 6th round pick who didn't have the best athleticism before knee surgery. I'd personally bet against him making the opening 53.
Jarren Williams is a street FA.
Holmes and Robinson have shown flashes and I personally like Flott, but unless they want the defense to go back to looking like Bettcher's D in 2019 which was non-competitive they'd be smart to bring in some veteran depth and both CB and S.
Not sure how this is relevant.
When I criticized the signing of Nate Solder, I was told, "We had no choice. He's better than the alternative."
This is loser thinking. It's better to go with the worse player than to dramatically overpay for a player that doesn't help a losing team win games.
who said anything about overpay? they don't even have the $ to overpay anyone.
my point is that "go with the young guys" is no different than the mistake the nyg made last year blindly trusting that young guys like Lemiuex and Peart and Hernandez would step up.
the defensive backfield as a group if non-competitive can sink an entire defense the same way an OL can sink an entire offense.
I am not advocating anything more than what Schoen did this year by bringing in multiple veterans with starting experience on VSB's on the OL just to raise the floor of how bad things can get if younger players don't work out or injuries hit.
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Rodarious Williams had 4 nfl targets before tearing his ACL and all 4 got caught. He was a 6th round pick who didn't have the best athleticism before knee surgery. I'd personally bet against him making the opening 53.
Jarren Williams is a street FA.
Holmes and Robinson have shown flashes and I personally like Flott, but unless they want the defense to go back to looking like Bettcher's D in 2019 which was non-competitive they'd be smart to bring in some veteran depth and both CB and S.
Not sure how this is relevant.
When I criticized the signing of Nate Solder, I was told, "We had no choice. He's better than the alternative."
This is loser thinking. It's better to go with the worse player than to dramatically overpay for a player that doesn't help a losing team win games.
It is teh same thinking that had DG year after year acting like he fixed something. The Giants are doing (in theory at the moment) what they did in the early 80's and again in the early 2000's, they are fixing the impact player in the Front 7 to help cover weaknesses elswhere.
If KT lives up to his hype and Ojulari develops in year two, we will be able to put pressure on QB's, forcing them to get rid of the ball quicker and asking our younger secondary to hold up a for a bit less time. Too many here look at the Giants team in compartments, separate portions and then come to an overall conclusion.
Last year we had Bradberry and Jackson, Ryan, Mckenzie, Holmes, Love etc and we were burned week after week especially in 3rd down and under two minutes of the half and game. Was it all their fault? No, of course not. BUT, if you look at it in compartments then YES, the secondary couldn't stop other teams when it was needed.
Look at it overall, from a construction point of view, we now plan to bring heat on oppossing QB's, forcing them to make quicker throws, quicker decisions. That may not hurt Brady or Rodgers as much but Wentz, Hurts, Fields, Goff, Lawrence, Tannehill etc. those guys it could and should
affect.
Bradberry's contract was too big. I some people Eric in Li cannot get past the fact that the contract and the cap mean soemthing when you look at a players value to the wins and losses column. Good teams can justify bad contracts and extensions because they know this guy might mean 2 more wins and a deeper trip in the post season. Bradberry hasn't meant that to the Gmen and certainly will not this year and thus any extension into future years just hurts us later on when his play has slipped even more. It isn't hard to figure that out.
I would rather see Williams and Flott get playing time in a losing season than Bradberry play a ton, make minimal impact and virtually no impact in the win column while eating up cap space now and in the future.
Giants CBs are going to take a few lickings this year. That is a unit that will need to be coached up for certain.
I really think they were playing some type of use the clock strategy on defense as some suggested on threads. I also think JB losing a step may have factored in as well.
Tavon Young - 1 year, 1.3m
Deshon Elliott - 1 year, 1.1m
those are the types of players i'd expect to see added over the next month or two - and imo it would be a big mistake not to. I expected that at least 1 of those guys would get signed here if that's all they got on the market so the biggest opportunity cost of carrying bradberry as long as they did was possibly taking themselves out of signings like that.
Nothing wrong with making rookies/recent draft picks beat out players like that for roster spots.
A much better PFF grade, and if you don't like them, that's fair. Let's do advanced numbers.
Jackson: 1 INT, 52.1% comp, 4.8 YPA, 2 TD's allowed, 69 rating, 252 air yards allowed, 101 YAC (353 total), 8.8 missed tackle percentage
Bradberry: 4 INT, 61.7% comp, 7.4 YPA, 7 TD's allowed, 93 rating, 555 air yards allowed, 293 YAC (848 total), 21.7 missed tackle percentage
Jackson was better. By far.
This would be a valid conclusion if we knew that they were covering equally good receivers. But presumably Bradberry covered the other team's best receiver more often than Jackson did. Do PFF grades consider this?
Even when the Giants had Jeremy Lincoln at CB, they didn't have anything like that.
The hope is we have guys on this team that aren't dreadful and can ease the sting of losing Bradberry, average or not.
The lack of depth is concerning but it is what it is. Gotta make do for now. I just hope we don't see this team get to a manageable record only to see the entire season shit the bed thx to Jeremy Lincoln redux.
https://twitter.com/PatMcAfeeShow/status/1524081123588034560 - ( New Window )
I posted that above. Bradberry has an inexperienced agent and I think they misplayed their hand. They thought their market was Xavien Howard when it was really Stephon Gilmore, and now it might not even be that.
I am looking forward to testing that POV.
We have a DC who is considered one of the best in the game, so let's see how he does with that critical part of coaching - development.
Unfortunate but there wouldn’t have been much of a fit in Martindale’s defense. Martindale would have had to revamp his defense to allow JB to play as a 5th DB and cover the big receiver while the other 2 corners play press.
With some young corners on this team and a goal of clearing the cap for 2023 / 2024 offseasons - cutting him was a no brainer.
Hard to call a player a 'luxury', when you are short on players at the cornerback position. I don't think he played as well last year as in year one. I think the mistake made by Schoen is not reading the market correctly, as a new GM.
Teams were not going to be in a hurry to trade for him, they knew the Giants situation. He could have saved another
2 Mill. on the salary cap, if he was cut at the beg. of the new season in March.