Tag: Leonard Williams

Report: Leonard Williams to play out franchise tag with Giants

The New York Giants and DL Leonard Williams are not expected to reach an agreement on a long-term contract by the July 15 deadline.

The New York Giants and defensive lineman Leonard Williams have less than 48 hours to reach an agreement on a long-term contract before the window of opportunity closes.

However, neither side appears pressed to get a deal done, instead finding a level of contentment in Williams playing out the 2020 regular season on the franchise tag worth $16.1 million.

In fact, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports the Giants and Williams are “on the same” page in that regard.

Giants general manager Dave Gettleman had previously expressed optimism that a long-term deal would get done before the July 15 deadline, but something has clearly changed.

“You know, the bottom line is contracts get done when they’re supposed to get done,” Gettleman told reporters in April. “So, we’ll just move along. You guys know I don’t discuss contracts, I don’t discuss timing, I don’t discuss anything. They get done when they’re supposed to get done.”

The Giants acquired Williams from the New York Jets mid-way through last season, and the trade was met with ire. Things got no better when Williams finished the season with just half a sack, leading many to question Gettleman’s thinking.

With Williams now slated to play out the season on the franchise tag and no guarantee of his return in 2021, Gettleman’s decision to trade multiple draft picks for the veteran looks even worse. And unless Williams has a particularly good season for the Giants and/or signs a long-term deal next spring, it may go down as one of the most questionable personnel decisions of Gettleman’s entire career.

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Time is running out for Giants, Leonard Williams to agree on long-term contract

The New York Giants and DL Leonard Williams are running out of time to agree on a long-term contract as the July 15 deadline looms.

When the New York Giants acquired defensive lineman Leonard Williams from the New York Jets mid-way through last season, general manager Dave Gettleman made it abundantly clear that the goal was to get Williams under a long-term contract.

Negotiations led nowhere earlier this year, so instead, Gettleman placed the franchise tag on Williams, which the veteran lineman was quick to sign.

“You know, the bottom line is contracts get done when they’re supposed to get done,” Gettleman told reporters in April. “So, we’ll just move along. You guys know I don’t discuss contracts, I don’t discuss timing, I don’t discuss anything. They get done when they’re supposed to get done.”

The bad news is that the Giants and Williams are now running short on time to agree on a long-term contract extension before the window of opportunity closes.

In fact, the two sides now have less than 48 hours to get that accomplished.

If the Giants and Williams can not agree on a long-term deal come July 15, the veteran will play on the one-year franchise tag worth a sizable $16.1 million.

That alone should be motivation for the cap-starved Giants to get Williams under a long-term contract, but it’s clear the two sides are nowhere close to an agreement. And those are very bad optics for Gettleman, who was heavily criticized for the trade in the first place.

Although Williams is a stellar run stopper, many across the football landscape get hung up on his sack numbers — of lack thereof. He recorded just a half a sack in 2019, which sounds bad but does not match the analytical data that suggests Williams is one of the better interior pass rushers in the game.

That argument aside, there will be no defense for Gettleman if he’s unable to get Williams under a new deal by July 15 because the odds of re-signing him next year are slim-to-none.

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Is Giants DT Leonard Williams on the hot seat?

Nate Davis of USA TODAY believes that New York Giants DT Leonard Williams is among 20 former first-round picks on the hot seat in 2020.

Leonard Williams played quite well for the New York Giants after being acquired in a trade from the New York Jets last season. And while most would like to focus on his sack numbers — or lack thereof — the analytical data suggests Williams is one of the best interior pass rushers in the game.

That, of course, is why Giants general manager Dave Gettleman traded for Williams in the first place, and why he hit the talented defensive lineman with the franchise tag as the two sides discuss a long-term contract.

Despite that, Nate Davis of USA TODAY believes that Williams is very much on the hot seat entering the 2020 season, adding him to a list of 20 players who were recent first-round picks but are now under the most pressure.

20. New York Giants DL Leonard Williams: Selected sixth overall by the Jets in 2015, he made the Pro Bowl in his second season and appeared to be a cornerstone player. However he was dealt across town midway through last season, yet didn’t sign an extension with the Giants, who wound up tagging Williams in March. Always more effective against the run than as a pass rusher (17½ career sacks), Williams’ market could be tricky – whether he opts to stay with the Giants or tests free agency next year – and he’ll likely need to apply a lot more pocket pressure to approach DeForest Buckner or even Trey Flowers money whenever he returns to the negotiating table.

Williams was quick to sign the franchise tag and has offered no public indication that he’d like to leave East Rutherford or test free agency in 2021.

Rather, Williams’ representatives and Dave Gettleman had been in contact prior to the coronavirus pandemic (and possibly since) and there was optimism a long-term deal would be done prior to the start of the regular season.

If the Giants and Williams don’t hammer out a long-term deal, then the defensive lineman will be under the same amount of pressure as any other player entering the final year of their contract.

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Will tagging Leonard Williams be Giants’ biggest 2020 regret?

Will the New York Giants regret placing the franchise tag on defensive lineman Leonard Williams?

New York Giants general manager Dave Gettleman has faced sharp criticism over his decision to trade for defensive lineman Leonard Williams in the midst of a losing season. He’s also faced some sharp criticism for the decision to slap Williams with the franchise tag.

Although Williams was quick to sign his tag and appears content in playing out the season on a one-year deal, the two sides continue to negotiate a long-term contract.

Regardless of whether such a deal gets done, Kristopher Knox of Bleacher Report maintains that the entire Williams situation will be Big Blue’s biggest regret of the 2020 season.

Let’s be honest. The New York Giants may regret trading for defensive lineman Leonard Williams more than they regret hanging onto him. They gave the crosstown Jets a third-round pick and a conditional fourth-rounder to land Williams and got little in return.

In eight games, Williams had just 13 solo tackles and half a sack. Yet general manager Dave Gettleman has defended the trade.

“The juice was worth the squeeze,” Gettleman said.

Well, the Giants have squeezed twice now for Williams, giving him the franchise tag for another audition in 2020. That’s going to cost New York a whopping $16.1 million for a player who had just 46 total tackles and half a sack in all of 2019.

As we at Giants Wire have stated previously, the constant criticism of Gettleman for his decision to acquire Williams is contradicting. After all, the very same people who slam Gettleman for “ignoring analytics” repeatedly ignore analytics when it comes to Williams.

All anyone can seem to focus on is Williams’ number of sacks and little else. They commit the same football sin they accuse Gettleman of, ignoring the advanced data that suggests Williams is among the league’s very best interior pass rushers — not to mention his stellar performance against the run.

As Knox alludes, if the Giants and Gettleman do have a regret when it comes to Williams, it should be because of the trade in 2019, not the franchise tag in 2020.

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2 Giants among those who could receive extensions in 2020

Two members of the New York Giants are among 50-plus veterans who could be in line for an extension in 2020.

The coronavirus pandemic has drastically altered the NFL’s usual offseason timeline, which has not only impacted rookies waiting to sign their first contract, but also veterans who are seeking contract extensions.

There are more than 50 veterans in line for new contracts of contract extensions — many of whom could land those deals once teams open training camp in late July.

Dan Graziano of ESPN recently broke down that completely list of names and two of them are current members of the New York Giants.

The first one is glaringly obvious.

Leonard Williams, New York Giants

The Giants surprised many by franchising Williams for $16.126 million, but they might have felt they needed to keep him to justify trading for him at last year’s trade deadline when they weren’t in contention. The sixth overall pick in the 2015 draft, Williams has only 17.5 sacks in five NFL seasons. The Giants don’t need the cap room they’d get from extending Williams. The bet here is that he plays out the season and hits free agency in March.

The Giants seem determined to get Williams under contract, so betting that he plays out the season and then enters free agency would be a risky wager.

As recently as last week, reports suggested the Giants and Williams were nearing a long-term deal, but the value of a potential deal was undetermined. Some believe that when (and if) Williams signed a contract extension, it will reset the market.

Next up on Graziano’s list was another Giants defensive lineman — Dalvin Tomlinson.

Other potential DL extensions: Dalvin Tomlinson, who enters the fourth and final year of his rookie deal, might be a better bet for a Giants DL extension than Williams.

Tomlinson is entering the final year of his rookie deal and it’s hard to envision a scenario in which the Giants let him walk. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be either or when it comes to Williams and Tomlinson, who play very different roles on defense.

The Giants could realistically sign both Tomlinson and Williams to extensions, ensuring the core of their defensive line remains intact for years to come.

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Leonard Williams’ potential Giants contract could reset D-line market

Any contract the New York Giants give defensive lineman Leonard Williams could impact the NFL and other players at his position.

New York Giants general manager Dave Gettleman may or may not have committed the biggest folly of his career when he traded a 2020 third-round selection and a conditional 2021 pick to the New York Jets for defensive lineman Leonard Williams last October.

It is practically unheard of for a team at the bottom of the NFL standings to trade valuable draft capital for an impending free agent, which Williams would have become had Gettleman not slapped the franchise tag on him earlier this year.

Williams, 26 this week, is the type of seasoned “young” veteran Gettleman wants to build the Giants around — a solid locker room guy who can also lead on the field. Given Gettleman’s penchant for larger players, the trade for the 6-foot-5, 302-pound former USC star who was the sixth overall selection in the 205 NFL Draft.

Williams, if not signed to new contract this season, will earn the franchise tag salary of $16.126 million. That is likely higher than any deal the Giants would have given him would have paid, but not by much.

Conor Orr of Sports Illustrated wrote that Williams’ tag figure “may or may not have been higher than what Williams would have earned on the open market anyway (this is actually a pretty interesting question, looking at Robert Quinn’s $14 million APY and Dante Fowler’s $15 million APY alongside someone like DeForest Buckner, who netted $21 million APY from the Colts. Williams’s number is probably not unreasonable and within a few million of what the open market price would have been).”

The Giants have reasons to want to get Williams under contract long-term. First, it will lower his 2020 cap hit (by how much is still unknown) and second to set up their cap for next year since they plan on keeping Williams around.

But signing Williams before the season has its downside as well. That conditional fifth-round pick they sent to the Jets becomes a fourth rounder if the Giants get Williams under contract before the season.

Either way, there is a lot at stake for Gettleman here. He made a deal he didn’t need to make — or shouldn’t have made — and now must make the best of things.

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Where are the Giants in terms of 2021 salary cap health?

The New York Giants are in the middle of a rebuild, which requires a healthy salary cap. Will they have that in 2021?

With the New York Giants in a rebuild, one of the key elements will be cap space going forward. It is important to have as much pace available as possible in order to bring in the players they will need to help them turn things around.

In 2021, Over The Cap estimates the Giants will have approximately $48 million in available cap space that could potentially be $67 million with possible contract restructures. That number could climb to as much as $103 million with some strategic cuts.

Tier 3: 49ers, Giants, Panthers, Vikings, Texans, Packers, Lions, Rams

This is a more haphazard group as it consists of a few teams that will likely have their cap positon overstated in 2021 and a few that will have it understated. For the most part this group of teams have one primary avenue to added cap space- either restructures or cuts but not nearly as much flexibility with both as the teams in the tier above. The 49ers, Lions and Rams can benefit the most with the restructure strategy while the Vikings, Packers, Giants, Panthers, and Texans could slice away to gain room. This is also the group where one big extension could drop them a tier and have a ripple effect on the cap. Of these teams the 49ers have the most overall flexibility and are probably in the best shape.

Given the current state of things with COVID-19 hanging over our heads, no one is sure what type of season the league will have. If the NFL is forced to play without fans, it will cost the league a pretty penny. Billions in revenue will be lost.

That will certainly lead to an end of the current streak of rising salary caps. In fact, it could lead to salary cap cuts or restrictions, but that is a conversation for after the 2020 season.

The Giants will be in decent shape regardless of the league’s financial landscape. The Giants don’t have a load of free agents of their own to tend to. Leonard Williams, Dalvin Tomlinson and Aldrick Rosas are the three big names possibly headed for the open market along with some other players they recently inked to one-year deals this spring (Kyler Fackrell, Dion Lewis, Cam Fleming, Austin Johnson).

It is expected that the Giants will sign Williams and Tomlinson to long-term deals either during or before the season, so that will cut into their 2021 cap space a bit.

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Bill Barnwell ranks the Giants’ offseason at No. 14 overall

ESPN’s Bill Barnwell believes the work the New York Giants did this offseason ranks somewhere around the middle of the NFL pack.

The New York Giants and general manager Dave Gettleman had a strong offseason, adding several key free agents at areas of need and then, by most accounts, nailing the 2020 NFL Draft.

Despite that, ESPN’s Bill Barnwell still views their offseason work near the middle of the pack, recently ranking their offseason at No. 14 overall.

What went right in Barnwell’s mind? The additions of cornerback James Bradberry and linebacker Blake Martinez for starters.

What went right: The Giants needed a lot this offseason, and general manager Dave Gettleman addressed many of the biggest concerns. Help in the secondary? They signed corner James Bradberry from Carolina. A fix for the rotating void at inside linebacker? Blake Martinez came over from Green Bay. Protection for Daniel Jones? They used the No. 4 overall pick on tackle Andrew Thomas, who should start his career at right tackle before replacing Nate Solder on the left side.

It remains to be seen whether Joe Judge will be up to the task as a first-time head coach, and his name didn’t exactly excite Giants fans, but new offensive coordinator Jason Garrett was once one of the league’s most promising playcallers. (Remember that Garrett was the Ravens’ first choice to replace Brian Billick in 2008.) Recent league history is littered with guys like Pat Shurmur, Gary Kubiak and Todd Bowles, each of whom looked behind the times and overwhelmed as head coaches before revitalizing their careers when moved back into a coordinator role. Garrett could do the same in New York.

And what went wrong for the Giants? Ironically, it was the additions of cornerback James Bradberry and linebacker Blake Martinez coupled with the team’s decision not to sign a top-tier pass rusher.

What went wrong: Bradberry and Martinez both signed expensive deals, with Martinez’s three-year, $30.8 million contract sticking out at a typically low-cost position for a player some Packers fans were happy to see leave town. The Giants also didn’t address what might be their biggest position of need by adding an edge rusher; they haven’t been able to re-sign Markus Golden and only added Kyler Fackrell, whose 10.5-sack season in 2018 sticks out like a sore thumb, given that he had six sacks across his three other seasons combined.

Barnwell was also critical of the Giants’ decision to place the franchise tag on defensive lineman Leonard Williams — a common gripe, it seems.

Gettleman also placed the franchise tag on defensive lineman Leonard Williams, doubling down on the inexplicable trade he made to acquire Williams for a going-nowhere Giants team last season. Williams will make $16.2 million and attempt to have his long-awaited breakout season in 2020, while New York will send a fourth-round pick in 2021 to the Jets to go with the third-rounder it shipped this past draft. Williams proceeded to file a grievance in the hopes of being repositioned as a defensive end, which would earn the former USC star an additional $1.7 million.

Unsurprisingly, Barnwell believes the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had the league’s best offseason, while the Houston Texans just made a mess of things.

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Dalvin Tomlinson: Giants bonding over anime, video games

New York Giants defensive lineman Dalvin Tomlinson believes video games and anime are helping the team bond.

In early March, New York Giants head coach Joe Judge lauded video games for helping his team bond during the unprecedented isolation brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.

Judge said video games created lines of contact for players, which allowed them to develop relationships away from the game of football.

During a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, defensive lineman Dalvin Tomlinson reiterated those sentiments and explained how it helped he and fellow defensive lineman Leonard Williams become close friends.

“I love Leonard, he is a great guy. I feel like we clicked off the field for the most part because we both love animated video games. We became instant best friends I guess you could say. I love playing beside him, he is a great guy, he brings great energy. Like you said, we have great chemistry. I’m looking forward to playing with him this upcoming season,” Tomlinson said.

Video games helps players develop team-like bonds in the virtual world, often forcing multiple parties to work together and think ahead — all skills that can be applied to real life and on the football field.

Tomlinson also believes the Zoom calls and online learning will help the team once they are able to congregate again in East Rutherford.

“I feel like it helps out a lot because most of us know each other already. I feel like we get to interact more with the other positions as well as the offense. You can put names to faces for the new guys on the team. It helps us bond a lot better so when we get back nobody is a stranger,” Tomlinson said.

“I don’t think there has been anything strange. Everybody has been bonding in the meetings, I guess you could say, getting to know each other. Some of us FaceTime each other. A lot of us play video games together in a group. We all have been on Call of Duty lately, bonding with that.”

For what it’s worth, Tomlinson believes he’s one of the team’s best Call of Duty players, although Blake Martinez may own the No. 1 spot.

“Right now, I would have to put myself in the top three. I haven’t played with Blake Martinez yet, but I’m looking forward to it. He might be number one,” Tomlinson said.

For all the negatives brought about by isolation, this type of team bonding may actually help the Giants and first-head coach Joe Judge in 2020 and beyond.

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Giants’ Leonard Williams led interior linemen in QB hits in 2019

New York Giants defensive tackle Leonard Williams led all interior linemen with 19 QB hits in 2019, which was five more than the No. 2 guy.

New York Giants defensive tackle Leonard Williams has been heavily criticized since the moment general manager Dave Gettleman acquired him in a trade from the New York Jets mid-way through the 2019 season.

The common complaint is that Williams does not generate enough pressure or secure enough sacks, having finished the year with 0.5, which represented a career low.

However, as Giants Wire has previously detailed, Williams’ valuation as a pass rusher should not begin and end with the sack numbers.

Williams had a pressure rate of 11.3% in 2019, which was 13th among interior defensive lineman. And if that weren’t enough, he also led all interior linemen with 19 pressures — five more than the next closest player.

Ironically, the same people who criticize Gettleman for being “out of touch” with analytics also criticize Williams for securing just a half a sack while ignoring the analytical data that suggests he’s one of the league’s best interior pass rushers.

Sacks sell, though. Just like the 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine, sack numbers are overvalued and used as a baseline for production when there’s much more to it.

Did Gettleman overpay for Williams? That’s a fair debate. Is Williams an absent pass rusher because of his sack numbers? That’s not a fair debate.

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