Tag: Dave Gettleman

Landon Collins: ‘Dave Gettleman didn’t want me’ with Giants

Landon Collins couldn’t be happier to be back with the Giants: “I wanted to stay, but (Dave) Gettleman didn’t want me here.”

Giants veteran Landon Collins couldn’t be happier to be back in New York. Collins was signed to the practice squad last week, and it sounds like he’ll be elevated to the active roster for Sunday’s game against the Ravens.

Collins was a second-round draft pick by the Giants in 2015, where he spent his first four seasons. The Commanders signed him to a massive six-year contract worth $84 million in the 2019 offseason. He was released by Washington last March and remained a free agent after the two sides failed to agree on a restructured deal.

Collins made it perfectly clear that the reason he didn’t re-sign with the Giants in 2019 was because former general manager Dave Gettleman didn’t want him on the roster.

“Facts, facts, facts, facts,” he said, via Pat Leonard.

“That was my only concern. I want fans to understand that. It wasn’t the Giants. It was Dave Gettleman…I wanted to stay, but Gettleman didn’t want me here.”

Collins is poised to make his second debut with the Giants when they host the Ravens on Sunday. So what does Collins want to show in his return to New York?

“That I still got it,” he said, via Paul Schwartz. “I’ve been injury prone the past what, two years, three years? That’s my biggest downfall, Other than that yeah, I still got it, I’m still a playmaker, I’m still a baller.”

Collins sounds like someone who’s ready to finish out his career with the Giants.

“Coming back, most likely hoping to retire as a Giant, is a dream come true,” Collins said, via Pat Leonard.

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PODCAST: Revisiting the top hits, misses from Dave Gettleman’s tenure

This week on the Giants Wire Podcast, we preview the New York Giants-Green Bay Packers in London and talk Dave Gettleman’s GM tenure.

This week on the Giants Wire Podcast, we break down the best and worst moves made by former New York Giants general manager Dave Gettleman. It was bad, but was it the worst run by a Giants GM ever?

We also discuss the Giants heading over to London to take on the Green Bay Packers while once again being hit with the injury bug. Can they possibly upset Aaron Rodgers & Co.?

Those topics (and more) are discussed in the latest episode of the Giants Wire Podcast, which is hosted by Ryan O’Leary (@RyanOLearySMG on Twitter) and joined by site editor Dan Benton (@TheGiantsWire).

The Giants Wire Podcast will air every week during the regular season and occasionally throughout the offseason. You can listen below:

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Giants’ Joe Schoen says restructures to come; focused on 2023 cap health

New York Giants GM Joe Schoen admits he inherited a mess and must restructure some contracts to get through the 2022 regular season.

The New York Giants have pretty much made all of their moves in an effort to retool their roster and get under the salary cap.

It hasn’t quite turned out the way that general manager Joe Schoen had planned. He still needs to restructure a contract or two to get under the cap in order for the team to operate this season.

“It’s the hand we were dealt,” Schoen said without directly tossing Dave Gettleman under the bus.

That means either defensive lineman Leonard Williams or wide receiver Kenny Golladay — or both — will be asked to convert salary into bonus within the next few days. That’s not something the Giants were planning on doing but as Schoen said, it was the hand they were dealt by the previous regime led by Gettleman.

Schoen not only has to “get through today,” he also has to be wary about next year and beyond. He really did inherit a mess that is going to take a few years to get out from under.

Luckily, Schoen feels optimistic that the team’s 2023 cap health will be much better than what he took over here in 2022.

Baby steps.

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Giants national scout Mike Derice named a future GM to watch

The New York Giants currently employ several future general manager candidates, including national scout Mike Derice.

The Athletic recently surveyed 26 certified agents regarding numerous league-wide issues. Questions included which general manager/front office were the best talent evaluators, which front office personnel were the least trustworthy and who are viewed as rising stars and potential GMs of the future.

Interestingly, the New York Giants came up quite a bit. For instance, current general manager Joe Schoen received a vote as one of the NFL’s best talent evaluators. On the opposite end of that spectrum, retired Giants general manager Dave Gettleman received a vote as the least trustworthy.

But perhaps the most significant takeaway is that Giants national scout, Mike Derice, received a vote as a future GM to watch. Coincidentally, Schoen received two votes in that same category a year ago.

Schoen and the Giants hired Derice away from the Indianapolis Colts back in May.

Derice, who grew up in Brooklyn, spent the past 10 years with the Colts organization. During that time, he briefly worked alongside current Giants assistant general manager Brandon Brown (2015-2016).

Some of the quality hidden gems uncovered by Derice include Isaiah Rodgers, Rock Ya-Sin, and Zaire Franklin.

Although Brown did not receive a vote, he is also widely considered a future GM candidate.

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PFF names Panthers’ best value free agent contract since 2013

The best free agent value the Panthers have gotten from the past nine years, according to PFF, came with a player they had signed on three different occasions.

Former Carolina Panthers general manager Dave Gettleman wasn’t known to be much of a free agent shopper. In fact, he even kidded about his penny pinching on one occasion back in 2015—stating he had to go bargain hunting at the “dollar store” the offseason prior.

But that thriftiness actually brought (or bought) the franchise its best free agent deal of the past nine years—at least according to Pro Football Focus.

Salary cap analyst Brad Spielberger recently dove all the way back to 2013 to find each team’s best value signing. And for Gettleman and the Panthers, theirs came from that very offseason the “Hogfather” was alluding to—in the form of cornerback Captain Munnerlyn.

“Munnerlyn signed a one-year, $1.1 million contract with the Panthers in 2013,” Spielberger writes. “He generated .488 wins above replacement, which carried a value of $12,004,800. That season, Munnerlyn earned the best PFF grade (79.5) of his eventual 10-year career.”

Munnerlyn, a University of South Carolina product, initially joined the organization as a seventh-round pick out of the 2009 NFL draft. He’d go on to ink that one-year pact when his rookie deal expired after the 2012 campaign.

The freshly-compensated defender proceeded to return two interceptions for scores that season, all while notching career-highs in tackles (74), tackles for a loss (four), sacks (3.0) and quarterback hits (five). His efforts helped the Panthers, who finished with a 12-4 mark and an NFC South division crown, allow the second-fewest yards and second-fewest points in the league.

Even more money would come Munnerlyn’s way, as he promptly earned himself a three-year, $11.25 million contract with the Minnesota Vikings in 2014. And when that was up, his biggest payday came on a four-year, $17.5 million agreement with, ironically enough, Gettleman and the Panthers in 2017.

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Xavier McKinney acknowledges ‘disagreements’ with previous Giants regime

New York Giants safety Xavier McKinney admits there were several “disagreements” with the previous regime.

Things have not gone well for the New York Giants over the past decade but under the watch of general manager Dave Gettleman and head coach Joe Judge, they bottomed out. Literally.

The Giants hit low-water marks in both 2020 and 2021, including a franchise-worst 13 losses a season ago.

Understandably, that prompted yet another regime change. Gone are both Gettleman and Judge, and in are Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll. That’s been refreshing for the players, including safety Xavier McKinney.

Although McKinney publicly supported Judge and his staff at the time, he recently acknowledged “disagreements” with the previous regime. That includes defensive coordinator Patrick Graham.

“I think a lot of times we weren’t seeing eye to eye on certain things,” McKinney told the New York Post. “Last year, my first three or four games, I was barely playing. There were some games where I didn’t even play the whole first half. I think people forget that, too. It was a lot of different things, we had our disagreements time to time. I’m happy with our new staff, man, I’m happy with what they’re doing with us and how they’re communicating with us.”

Judge prided himself on his ability to communicate with players but since his departure, we’ve learned that wasn’t exactly his strong suit. And all of those “teachers” he hired? They struggled with communication as well.

In McKinney’s eyes, things have already changed drastically under Schoen, Daboll and the new staff.

“They’ve done a great job of taking care of us. Dabes has done a great job of communicating with us,” McKinney said. “Some coaches, they’ll ask you like, ‘Are you good?’ And then you say, ‘Nah, not really,’ and then we’ll do the same thing. So all right, why did you ask me if you weren’t gonna change anything? So like with him, he’ll ask, and he’ll actually stand true to that. When you give everybody your word and you actually live by it, that means a whole lot more when you don’t.”

As for the new-look Giants, McKinney is optimistic. And he shared that optimism in a message to Big Blue fans.

“I know it hasn’t been the best the last couple of years or so. But I think we’re really gonna change things around. Just be prepared, and we’re gonna make you guys proud. I appreciate you all for sticking with us, I know it’s been rough, but we’re gonna turn this thing around,” McKinney said.

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Did Giants GM Joe Schoen recently take shots at Dave Gettleman?

New York Giants GM Joe Schoen recently made some comments that have been interpreted as a shot at Dave Gettleman.

New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen is handling his new job with dignity and class thus far. Handed an almost impossible salary cap and roster situation by his predecessor, Dave Gettleman, Schoen has pragmatically navigated his first offseason with surprising adeptness.

In fact, Schoen has actually set the Giants up for future success in just a few months. Sure, it may take another year or two to realize the results, but the climb out of the nearly decade-long chasm is finally underway.

That doesn’t mean he’s letting Gettleman off the hook. In interviews the past few months, Schoen has seemingly taken some shots at the previous regime for their wanton financial ways, widespread ineptitude and lack of foresight.

“Could we have done better? Yeah, if we had $40 million in cap space, yeah,” Schoen told the New York Post recently. “With what we had, I think we executed a plan. We were able to upgrade the roster with the resources we had.”

Was that a subtle shot at Gettleman? WFAN’s Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti certainly think so.

“Yeah, he’s taking like five different shots at Dave Gettleman, without question,” Boomer said. “He’s also trying to keep expectations to a minimum. He’s saying, ‘Look, we got here, we had a cap situation. . . and of course I got a better coach.'”

“‘Listen, we were left with a terrible team in cap hell,'” Gio imitated. “He did a good job of not going straight at Gettleman. . . but this has got to be like a three-year plan. They have so much work to do.”

We agree. Schoen inherited a team that was way over the salary cap and laden with inexplicably egregious contracts to underperforming veterans. The team’s draft failures compounded the issues, leaving the Giants destined to fail year after year.

Those days are gone. Some of the hard decisions have been made and there will be more to come. The new regime has a different approach. They are builders. The box of band aids has been put back on the shelf.

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Do Giants finally have ‘competent leadership’?

After years of mismanagement under Dave Gettleman and a hodgepodge of coaches, do the New York Giants finally have “competent leadership”?

The New York Giants have lost 10 or more games five years in a row and in seven of their last eight. That’s a legacy of losing that defies logic in a league that practically bends over backward to assist struggling teams.

Having headstrong figures running the show, combined with antiquated thinking and just plain bad luck, has put the team in a spiral that few see them escaping anytime soon.

How could a team be in salary cap hell plus have a roster devoid of talent at the same time? It seems almost impossible to accomplish in pro sports these days.

But the Giants managed to do it. Now comes the hard part of digging out. They hired Buffalo Bills assistant general manager Joe Schoen to replace Dave Gettleman as the general manager. He then hired Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll to be the Giants’ fifth head coach since the dismissal of Tom Coughlin in 2016.

Bleacher Report’s Brett Sobieski calls the Giants’ changes in the front office and coaching staff as featuring “competent leadership.”

The New York Giants’ current brain trust of general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll already seem far more capable than the previous regime.

Under previous general manager Dave Gettleman, the Giants drafted a running back with the second overall pick and Daniel Jones with the sixth overall pick. Those two moves alone have set back the franchise since Saquon Barkley has been injured and Jones hasn’t developed.

Schoen had little cap room to work with coming in the door. In fact, he had to shed nearly $40 million in salaries in order to free up enough room to sign a few veterans to low-level deals and get the incoming draft class under contract.

The Giants hit a home run in the first round of the draft when they scored a one-two punch of Oregon edge rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux and Alabama offensive tackle Evan Neal.

The salary cap going forward should be flexible enough to allow Schoen to continue to fill in the blanks where needed, and Daboll has already carved a niche with his players.

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Giants will pay James Bradberry more than Eagles in 2022

James Bradberry leaves the New York Giants will a larger dead cap hit than the salary he’s actually drawing from the Philadelphia Eagles.

Former New York Giants Pro Bowl cornerback James Bradberry signed a one-year deal with the rival Philadelphia Eagles on Wednesday, a move that will cost the Giants in more ways than one.

In fact, the Giants will pay a larger dead cap hit for Bradberry than Philly will pay in his 2022 salary.

The Giants signed Bradberry to a three-year, $45 million free agent deal before the 2020 season and the former Carolina Panthers’ second round pick had a breakout year and was named to the Pro Bowl after the season.

Last year, Bradberry followed that up with another solid campaign and established himself as a cornerstone of the Giants’ defense.

But with the salary cap out of control and incoming general manager Joe Schoen not beholden to anyone on the existing roster, he has been systematically cutting and trimming the roster in an effort to get the club back into a more livable salary cap structure.

Schoen tried to trade Bradberry but was unsuccessful. That led to Bradberry’s outright release two weeks ago, making him a free agent.

This is just another case of Schoen cleaning up from the excesses and miscalculations of the previous administration led by his predecessor, Dave Gettleman.

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Giants were league’s worst DVOA underachievers in 2021

The New York Giants were the NFL’s worst DVOA underachievers in 2021 and you can’t even blame the injuries for that.

The New York Giants have underperformed for some time now. Seven double-digit loss seasons over the last eight years should pretty mush tell that story.

But there are plenty of other metrics that will expound the narrative further, such as Football Outsiders’ DVOA chart.

DVOA is described by FO as “defense-adjusted value over average breaks down every single NFL play and compares a team’s performance to a league baseline based on situation in order to determine value over average (regular season only).”

In 2021, the Giants topped the list of DVOA “underachievers.”

The Giants did prove our projections wrong, offensively. We had them ranked 22nd—below average, for certain, but not a disaster. Instead, they finished 30th in rush DVOA, 31st in pass DVOA, and 32nd in total DVOA, clocking in at -28.1%. And, as such, both David Gettleman and Joe Judge were fired, no matter how much Judge tried to insist that the Giants were not a “clown-show organization.”

The Giants once again were near the top of the league in “adjusted games lost” which calculates games missed by key performers, but FO isn’t solely blaming injuries for the Giants’ inept play.

You can’t blame all of the Giants’ offensive woes on players missing time. The Giants didn’t exactly get worse with Saquon Barkley out of the lineup; their run DVOA went from was -29.1% with Barkley to -22.6% with Devontae Booker. The receivers were constantly misused, even when healthy, Kadarius Toney being the biggest example there. The offensive line consisted of Andrew Thomas and four guys who were very much not Andrew Thomas; they finished 31st in adjusted line yards. They were a little better in pass protection, but only because the Giants gave up on throwing downfield by midseason; Jones’ 7.2-yard aDOT was fifth-worst in the league.

It all boils down to a total systematic failure under former general manager Dave Gettleman, who managed the team by feel rather than relying on hard, tangible data.

Every member of the staff failed them. Gettleman brought in no depth for the offensive line, so when injuries started happening they didn’t even have promising prospects or quality backups to slide in. Jason Garrett was fired at midseason after his ultra-conservative, stagnant offense went nowhere. And Joe Judge called a sneak on third-and-9, the icing on a cake of incompetence and frustration. All the laps in the world weren’t keeping the Giants’ offense afloat in 2021.

2022 should be an improvement mainly because things couldn’t potable have gone worse last season.

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