Exhale Giants Fans! The first two dominoes of the Giants offseason have fallen in place as planned.
As the NFL Combine ended, Giants front office and coaching staffs returned to 1925 Giants Way headquarters. Following closely behind them were Daniel Jones’ agents. Negotiations continued Monday and Tuesday right up to the deadline. Giants fans social media was going crazy with anxiety leading up to the deadline. Finally, four minutes before the Tag deadline, the Giants announce a deal with Daniel Jones and also that Saquon Barkley gets the Franchise Tag which equates to a $10.1M for the 2023 season unless the Giants and Saquon can come to an agreement. When the drama and dust settle, Daniel also has the opportunity to achieve another $35M in incentives. Details on the full terms of the contract will follow.
So, the Giants retain the two keys to their offensive success of 2022, and set the building blocks for GM Joe Schoen and Head Coach Brian Daboll to execute the rest of the plan to bring in the necessary skill position players for a much more potent Giants offense in 2023.
This Giants management team knows how to generate excitement, nerves and emotions across the spectrum. The Jones negotiations have dominated NFL news and social media coverage from the combine up to 4pm EST today. Mike Garafolo of NFL Network stated today that both sides had essentially agreed to a $40M per year deal which was apparently a huge requirement for Jones and his agents. However, the Giants wanted the contract structure to be manageable within the plans for impact to the salary cap. As I posted on Twitter earlier today, “{Contract] Structure is very critical…per @PatKirwan_NFL, nearly all teams want to allocate no more than 15% of cap to a QB contract. That means Joe [Schoen] is trying to keep years 1&2 in the no more than $34M and $38M area…will need 5 years to realize and spread what DJ wants in money and aav[average annual value].” Surprisingly, the Giants agreed to just four years. This allows Daniel to potentially re-enter free agency while still in his 20s which would mean another huge payday.
Now, the Giants can turn their attention to signing the several other free agent veterans they want back. It was also reported today that the Giants are willing to pay Saquon $13.5M per year. That’s not close to his reported asking price of $16M per year, but much better than the franchise price. Then there is Safety Julian Love as well as several others in line.
Take a breath GM Joe Schoen. But then, there is so much more to do.
