NFC East 2024 free agency grades: New York Giants edition

After qualifying for the playoffs and even advancing to the divisional round of the playoffs in 2022, the New York Giants entered 2023 thinking that they were finally heading in the right direction as a franchise. And then... (fart noise).

The Giants will be probably be more interesting to watch in the draft, since they could be looking to make a big move for a quarterback, but they still needed to add good players in free agency as well. Let's take a look at what they did.

Players gained

• EDGE Brian Burns: The Giants traded a high second-round pick (39th overall) and a fifth-round pick (141st overall) to the Panthers for Burns, and then gave him a five-year contract worth $150 million ($30 million per season). Burns is now the second-highest paid edge rusher in the NFL behind only Nick Bosa. 

Trade cost: Reasonable.
Contract cost: High.
#Analysis

Burns has 46 career sacks and eight forced fumbles in five seasons. His best year was 2022, when he had 12.5 sacks, the lone double-digit sack season of his career. He is a very good edge rusher, but one whose numbers don't match the hype.

For the Giants' purposes, Burns joins a Giants pass rush with Dexter Lawrence, Kayvon Thibodeaux, and Azeez Ojulari. That is something that they can perhaps hang their hat on and build around.

On a side note, the Panthers are an atrocious organization: 

As a small added bonus for the Giants, by only giving up a 2 and a 5 for Burns, the Giants and Panthers may have also messed up the trade markets for the Eagles' Haason Reddick and Josh Sweat.

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• OL Jon Runyan: Runyan has been a starter for the Packers the last three years. He's better in pass pro than he is as a run blocker. The Giants had a historically awful offensive line in 2023, so it's no surprise that they added a bunch of offensive linemen this offseason. Reportedly three years, $30 million. He'll likely start at RG.

• OL Jermaine Eluemunor: Eluemunor has some guard/tackle versatility. He started at RT for the Raiders last season, and his addition could be bad news for draft bust Evan Neal. Two years, $14 million. Pencil Eluemunor in as the starting RT.

• OL Aaron Stinnie: Stinnie started at LG for the Buccaneers in 2023. He's a below average starter, but he's probably better than anything the Giants had at guard last season.

• RB Devin Singletary: Singletary is a committee back who has played both for the Bills and Texans. He has a nice career 4.6 yards per carry average, though he had his lowest YPC average (4.2) in 2023 in Houston when he had the heaviest workload of his career (216 carries). Over the last six seasons, opposing defenses keyed on Saquon Barkley when they played the Giants. They will not key on Singletary. Of course, Singletary comes at a far cheaper price than Barkley, at three years, $16.5 million.

• QB Drew Lock: Lock seems to have settled into the NFL as a decent backup, and he will likely have a long career. The Giants got him at a reasonable cost of $5 million for one year.

• WR Isaiah McKenzie: In his short time as the Giants' general manager, Joe Schoen has had a weird addiction to signing No. 3 receivers and former Bills.

• DB Jalen Mills: "Jalen Mills is dead to me." - Brian Westbrook. 

Just kidding. Westbrook wouldn't say that because he isn't a weirdo dweeb. (This was a "Tiki Barber is a weirdo dweeb" joke.)

Also, the Giants lost Xavier McKinney and for now they're replacing him with Jalen Mills. 😬

• TE Jack Stoll: Stoll signed with the Giants after the Eagles did not tender him as a restricted free agent. Stoll played for the Eagles for three years after making the team as an undrafted rookie free agent in 2021. He was a decent enough blocker, though it's not exactly as if he was pancaking guys all over the field. As a receiver, he has 20 career catches for 183 yards and 0 TDs.

• TE Chris Manhertz: Manhertz has 26 career receptions in 8 seasons. I think I saw some folks making a connection between the Giants signing two tight ends and equating that to a potential upcoming retirement announcement from Darren Waller. Maybe Waller will retire, and maybe he won't, but neither Stoll nor Manhertz do anything resembling what Waller did well during his NFL career, so that's probably a faulty conclusion to draw from these two signings.

• OL Austin Schlottmann: Schlottmann has started 14 games in five seasons with the Vikings and Broncos, mostly at center, but also at both guard spots. I won't pretend to know anything more about him than that. 

• OT Matt Nelson: Nelson also has 14 career starts, all with the Lions, all at RT.

Players retained

• WR Isaiah Hodgins: Hodgins played in 17 games in 2023, starting 9, and he had just 21 receptions for 230 yards and 3 TDs.

• CB Darnay Holmes: Backup slot guy. Snap counts were way down in 2023.

• WR/PR Gunner Olszewski: 11.9 yards per return for the Giants in 2023.

• LB Carter Coughlin: Coughlin led the Giants in special teams tackles in 2023, but doesn't have much value in the regular defense.

• LS Casey Kreiter: He throws the ball through his legs to the punter and the holder.

Players lost

• S Xavier McKinney: McKinney signed a four-year deal worth $68 million with the Packers. $17 million per year is big money, but McKinney is still only 24 years old and he is one of the best safeties in the NFL. In 2023, he had 116 tackles, 11 pass breakups, and 3 INTs. It was a curious decision for the Giants not to tag McKinney, seeing as, you know, they don't have many good players. It's a lot easier to open up cap space than it is to find good players, and they might regret losing him.

• RB Saquon Barkley: Barkley got a three-year deal worth $37.75 million from the Eagles. It's been amusing watching some Giants media folks (radio guys, mostly) as well as some fans losing their minds over Barkley signing with the Eagles, but for where their roster is the Giants were absolutely right not to try to match the money he got in Philly. 

The Giants reportedly didn't make an offer at all to Barkley, who then took the best deal on the table, which also happened to be close to his roots. What a bad guy!

• DL A'Shawn Robinson: Robinson played in all 17 games for the Giants in 2023, with 13 starts. He made 62 tackles, but no real impact plays (0 FF, 0 sacks, 6 TFL).

• EDGE Jihad Ward: The Giants were Ward's sixth team in eight seasons after the Raiders drafted him in the second round. The Vikings will be his seventh team in nine seasons.

• QB Tyrod Taylor: Taylor is now 34 years old. He went 2-3 in 5 starts for the Giants in 2023. He signed with the Jets.

• OL Ben Bredeson: Bredeson went from the Giants to the Bucs, and Stinnie went from the Bucs to the Giants. The Giants got the better of that trade-off, in my opinion, even if Stinnie isn't that good.

• OT Matt Peart: I liked Peart coming out of college and thought he'd be a nice swing tackle, but he just didn't play very well in the opportunities that he got. He's now a Bronco.

• WR Parris Campbell: Campbell had 20 receptions for 104 yards in 2023, for an impossibly low 5.2 yards per receptions. The Eagles signed him, for some reason.

The tale of the tape

Analysis/Grade

The loss of Saquon Barkley to the Eagles and the trade for Brian Burns were the two biggest headlining-grabbing free agency developments for the Giants this year.

• As noted above, as an organization that is still nowhere close to Super Bowl contention, retaining Barkley for the what the Eagles paid him would have been dumb, and they were right not to try to re-sign him.

• Burns will no doubt help the Giants' pass rush, which should now be a strength, but they also invested heavy resources into acquiring him. My guess on how that trade plays out? Burns is a good player for the Giants who is paid like an elite player.

Once you look past those two moves, I kinda hate what Joe Schoen and the Giants did otherwise. It was no surprise that they addressed the offensive line, but how much better did they get there, really? Here's what their OL depth chart now looks like, prior to the draft:

Surely the Giants' offensive line will be better than the historically awful line they fielded in 2023, when they gave up the second-most sacks ever in a single season. That's an extremely low bar to clear. But does that make it a good line? In my opinion, probably not. Is the plan here to upgrade the line a little bit, and then upgrade it again at the same positions in a year or two? The offensive line is not where you should be applying Band-Aids.

Runyan is a solid enough starter, I suppose, though (grain of salt) he was the 47th ranked guard by PFF in 2023, tied with Stinnie. Eluemunor was the 36th ranked tackle. Stinnie is 30, and Eluemunor will turn 30 in December.

Of course, Eluemunor and Runyan will be replacing Evan Neal and Mark Glowinski. Schoen selected Neal 7th overall in the 2022 NFL Draft. That same offseason he signed Glowinski to a three-year deal worth $18 million. Neal has been a turnstile his first two seasons in the NFL, and might be moving to guard. Glowinski is gone.

Interestingly, Schoen is also paying Runyan and Eluemunor — who, again, are just kinda "solid," at best — a combined $17 million per year. If that number sounds familiar, it should. It's what S Xavier McKinney signed for in Green Bay, and it's also what it would have cost the Giants to franchise tag him this year.

Personally, I'd much rather spend on my home-grown, top 5 type of safety who is still only 24 years old than a couple of easy-to-find, average offensive linemen, especially if I'm running a team that has a long way to go before it will contend for a Super Bowl. 

Grade: C.

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