Complete NY Giants Offseason Plan for 2024 w/ Free Agency & Mock Draft Picks

In this episode of "2 Giant Goofballs: A NY Giants Podcast," titled "Complete NY Giants Offseason Plan for 2024 w/ Free Agency & Mock Draft Picks," we embark on an exhaustive journey through the intricacies of the New York Giants' offseason preparations.

With a current cap space of $30,801,691, our hosts meticulously craft a comprehensive plan to optimize the team's roster composition and financial flexibility for the upcoming season.

Through a series of strategic maneuvers, including contract restructuring, player extensions, free agency signings, and the NFL Draft, our hosts aim to position the Giants for success on the field.

We explore potential cuts and contract extensions, identifying key players to retain while freeing up cap space to pursue impactful signings in free agency.

Delving into the free agent market, our hosts target high-impact players such as AJ Espenesa, Jermaine Eluemunor, Kevin Dotson, and Shelby Harris, aiming to bolster the team's depth and talent across various positions.

In the NFL Draft segment, our hosts unveil their mock draft picks, meticulously selecting promising prospects like Malik Nabers, Michael Penix Jr., TJ Tampa, and others to further strengthen the Giants' roster.

Ultimately, after careful deliberation and strategic planning, our hosts assemble a final 53-man roster filled with a balanced mix of seasoned veterans, emerging talents, and promising rookies, poised to lead the Giants to success in the upcoming season.

Join us on "2 Giant Goofballs: A NY Giants Podcast" as we navigate the complexities of the Giants' offseason preparations and craft a roadmap for success in 2024.

#nygiants #giants #nfl

Transcript

Welcome to Two Giant Goofballs, a New York Giants podcast. Are you a goofball that loves Giants football? If so, sit back and relax as we talk about the team that both excites and frustrates us so much. And now, here are your goofball hosts, Drew and Rob. Welcome, fellow goofballs, to Two Giant Goofballs, a New York Giants podcast. I am Drew, joined as always by... And me, Azrav. We got a lot of cast to talk about. We have a lot to talk about, guys. This is going to be a fun, long episode here. You guys bear warning right now. We're going to go through a complete off-season plan here. We're going to go over exactly who we're going to re-sign, who we're going to extend, who we're going to cut, who we're going to sign in free agency, who we're going to draft, and All these decisions, like, start to finish of the offseason here. So, if you're like us, and you're a diehard Giants fan, and you're rooting for a good offseason, guys, this is an episode you're going to like. So, if you haven't already, hit the like, hit the subscribe, hit the share. Tell a friend, tell a friend, tell a friend. Let's kick it right off of where we're at right now here. Because the big thing is... We got the current situation in your cap space. We got the new cap out. So the cap is about $10 million higher than what the NFL originally world was going to think it was going to be there. But listen, guys, don't get too excited. Don't get too excited because I seem like, oh, my God, it means we can sign everybody now. Oh, no. Guess what, guys? Everybody got $10 million more. Not just the Giants. Everybody got $10 million more. So that just means you have some more wiggle room, but it also means that the guys who are free agents and are going to re-sign this offseason and all that kind of stuff are probably going to pay a little bit more money than you expected. I was going to say, this is what's called inflation. You have more money to play with means... supply and demand goes up. We talked about this for a while. This was a planned thing that everybody knew was going to happen to a certain degree because this is where all the NFL money started to come in from all these online deals and all. People are complaining about Peacock getting an NFL playoff game or Amazon Prime and all this stuff. You have to get all these online things now. Guess what, guys? This is why we have money now. Because they pay a lot of money for that stuff. I pay a lot of money. So Like I said, we're starting, and this is according to over the cap, and I'm going to say this. I've seen a lot of numbers floating around. I've seen numbers floating around, maybe $29 to $32 million. I'm going to go over the caps because it's in the middle. $30,801,691. Can't forget that $1. And that's where our cap is, yes. So the first thing we've got to figure out is what are we going to do with our current players? And who's got to go bye-bye because they make too much money? And the first person we're cutting is Rob. He makes way too much money. But I'm a volunteer. Wait, wait, hold on. It's two giant goofballs. We can't cut you. We need two of us. So the first guy we're going to cut is, of course, the guy that everybody knows is going to get cut. Even he knows it, I'm sure. He's probably already got his house in the market. Mark Lewinsky. Two years he's been with us. Guy had a great track record prior to coming to the Giants. It just hasn't worked out for whatever reason. I'm not going to blame the man. I'm not going to bash him on the way out the door. It's time to go. And I'm sure he'll probably go somewhere else and probably be a decent guard for somebody else because he's been multiple places a good guard. He's not been a Pro Bowl caliber. He's been a solid guard, though, now for two teams. So some of the blame has got to go on us and Bobby Johnson for that one, guys. But it's time. So we're going to save $5,682,353 by cutting Mark Gowinski. We're also going to cut another guy who just can't seem to ever make it onto the field. And that's Aaron Robinson, the quarterback. You probably forgot we even had him. I was about to say, it's been about 16 months, 18 months since we talked about this guy. Yeah, it's been a while. It's been how long since he's played here. He played a little bit in the regular season there, 22. Didn't play anything at all in 23 because of injuries. Yeah, it's time. It's time to move on. So $1.3 million basically we got. We got $1,361,358,000 we saved. So we just created, guys, and there's $7 million in cap space. Not too shabby. We have another guy that we're not going to cut. We're going to extend him because this man is an unsung hero on the team. He is one of the most underrated New York Giants ever to play in a uniform. I'm sorry I'm going to say it. That's fair. It's fair to say. It is the truth. That's fair. That's Darius Slayton. So he's into his last year of a two-year deal he signed last year, guys. And if you look at the way that deal went, it was a two-year $12 million. But most of the numbers were in this year. So his cap hit last year was $4.25 million. This year it's $8.15. And if we cut him hypothetically, we save $6.4 million against the cap. Now, I'm not suggesting we cut him. But what I'm saying is this is a guy who was primed and ready for an extension to get that cap number down a little bit this year. Because, let me be very frank, if we can't come to an extension, I still want to keep him. You tell me who we're going to get to give us 700 yards on a consistent year-in, year-out basis for $8 million a year on the free agents market. Not going to happen. No one. He's not getting overpaid, guys. Um, But I'm going to go ahead and try to get the number down a little bit. So we're going to extend them. We're going to give them a three-year $25 million deal, guys. And we're going to get that first-year cap number down to $3 million because of that. Remember, the first year is typically the year that you save a little money by doing this stuff. So we're going to save another $3 million there. We're up to about $10 million you've saved so far, guys. Not too shabby. Yeah. now we have now we have now we have a few we have a few guys we could also a few we have a few guys we could also a few we have a few guys we could also extend and restructure extend and restructure extend and restructure so so We got the Darius Lee extension. Now it's into restructure time. So we got three guys specifically that we can restructure, and that's Andrew Thomas, Bobby Okereke, and Dexter Lawrence. Because those guys have recently signed contracts. Those are guys that we can kick the can a little bit down the road with because we plan on keeping them. If you were to tell me at some point this season that we're going to cut Andrew Thomas, Bobby Okereke, or Dexter Lawrence, I would smack you right upside the damn head. Those three guys we can restructure to save some money this year. We're kicking the can a little next year, but we're expecting a huge drop when we drop a certain quarterback next year. We can do that, and it makes sense because we know when that money is coming back. We can save up to $36 million, guys, by restructuring those guys. I'm not suggesting to save all $36 million. I'm not saying to kick the can that far down the road, guys. but I'm saying it's just a possibility we have to have that option and we probably should do at least some of it and we're going to do that here in this scenario so now we're up to 40 million 845 thousand three hundred and ninety seven dollars saved up on the cap within a 36 million dollars if need be in cap space so we can technically do you know 78 million dollars almost worth of work here If we wanted to. That's a lot of money, guys. Yeah. Most teams have nowhere near that money. So we're not in bad cap space here. We're going to kick the can a little, and that's going to help us, and we're going to pay for it next year. But we're going to get this team back to respectability because I'm tired of this team being the laughingstock it is. Let's be honest. It is. But we're not going to go crazy either because if you go crazy, you don't win, guys. I've talked about this every year even before the podcast here. The people who overspend and tend to win the offseason tend to lose the regular season. How did the Bears do last year? The Bears spent all that money. Bosley made great moves. This is what happens. You make these moves. The Lions and Rams made some moves. They made some moves. The Rams are actually the youngest team in all of football. They actually drafted a ton of people. Aren't the Packers the youngest team? I thought the Rams were. I'm pretty sure it's the Packers. Youngest team in the NFL. Okay. You got me. You got me. It is apparently the Packers. But the Rams are number two at 50. It's only one third of a year difference. You're talking 25 or 25.3. That's how close we're talking in age. By the way, they're just 25.7. So anyway, we're going to go ahead and sign some guys. We're not going to go crazy. No, 25 and 7 was us. So we're not going to go crazy. We're going to sign some people. But we're also going to re-sign some of our guys because we have some guys that deserve some money that are part of the reason why Giant fans have enjoyed watching the Giants so much. I don't want to say part of the success because there's not much success to talk about the last couple of years. Well, I mean, the first guy we're going to drop about, we're going to talk about, I mean, he had some success. Yeah, he's had some success as an individual, not as much as a team. For being honest. So, what we're doing is we're re-signing Saquon Barkley. And we're making him a long-term-ish deal. Because we're not going to give him a long, long-term deal, guys. He's 27 years old right now. I got to look to see if he can turn 28 before the season starts. But we're going to give him a deal. Yeah, 27. Yeah. This past year, he turned 26. Okay. He's 27 now. So three-year deal already given. It's going to be about a $36 million total deal at that point there. Now keep in mind that means nothing in the grand scheme of things. That's what you're going to show on paper to make it look like it's a great deal and Saquon got paid and he feels respected and all that kind of stuff. In reality, it's going to be like a two-year $20 million deal. With probably a lot of incentives. Yes. Well, I was saying it's going to be a lot of BS in the back that he's never going to get. Let's be very frank. After two years, if he's still playing good, we would go ahead and have to re-sign him, extend him out, and re-rip that contract up, basically, or end up cutting him. That's where it's going to be at. But that's enough to let Saquon show that he's, you know, hey, look, I got three years, $36 million. The Giants really care about me. They respect me, blah, blah, blah. He can save face. But the Giants can save face as well. And they can pay him like, you know, $8 or $9 million the first year at that point there. You know, give him a pay raise the second year. Give him, you know, $11 million or so. And then the rest of it is like a last year $16 million deal he'll never see. Call it like it is. Because that's what he's going to get is that kind of deal. I feel like the first two years will have a lot of sentos. And I'm fine with that. Because incentive means he's got to be healthy and got to put up numbers together. Yeah, exactly. I'm just saying that Barkley's not going to sign to make less money than he did when he was upset this past year. I'm telling you right now, he's not going to get it. I am telling you right now. I will place money on this. He's not going to get it. Never going to get it. Never going to get it. Wah, wah, wah, wah. I mean, here's the problem we run into. He's a year older. He's coming off another year with injuries. And now we talked about it last year. There's a lot of guys on the market. Obviously, you had Josh Jacobs on the market. You had Pollard on the market. Well, guess what? Those guys are back in the market again this year because they all got franchise tag. Derrick Henry is on there. Austin Eckler is on there. Swift is on there. This is such a heavy running back free agent market, guys. I'll tell you right now. Who had the best year of all of them? I mean, Jacobs, he looked washed up. Pollard, he had four touchdowns in a year. He had the best second half, though. He had the best second half. I mean, if you want to really talk about who had the best year overall, there are people that would tell you Swift. Yeah, maybe Swift. But he was in a different... I don't know if I would agree with that, but there are people that would tell you that. But you can also go, Derrick Henry had 1,100 yards, a 4.2-yard average, so he definitely had a better year than Barkley had. He did, but you're also looking at... The past two years, everyone's talking about Derrick Henry has fallen off the tires. Is he going to be what he is? Oh yeah, he definitely is. He's on that trajectory. He's been doing this for so long. It's officially going to right down. He's going to just collapse. He's going to have half the yards he had. You're taking that gamble and he's going to know that. He's probably going to start to have a little less. Do I hear you? You got a team like the Ravens that might Yeah. You got a team like the Ravens who might sign someone like Barkley or Eckler. Depends on how cheap you can get them. And how much you want to win. And Eckler's the guy I was going to say as well that you can make that case for. Eckler also had similar yards in similar games as well. He just didn't get the carry. He's necessarily Saquon. So I guess I could sit and say Saquon could be potentially your favorite of the available running backs depending on your opinion on these guys. And that's 100% valid to say. But what I'm saying is there's so many of these running backs and it's such an undervalued position that I don't think any team's going to go run out and overpay for any of these guys. I really don't. And I think that's where we're at. That's why I got sick. I'm not saying they're going to overpay. But when you talk, I understand what you're saying. I'm saying we're talking about overpaying. If you tag them with this increase, is there an increase in the tag coming on? No, because it's based on last year's salaries. No, it's based on last year's salaries. But because we tagged him last year, I think it's going to be worth $12 million. Yeah, it's in the bulk worker 12. Because it was like 10-2 or whatever. It's just shy of 12-1 now this year. But when you're talking about long-term contracts, it's going to be less. I hear you. But if you go to, say, the Ravens, and they offer them $40 million for those three years, a little bit more. It's a possibility. It's a possibility. To me, that's a reasonable number for where he's going to be at. And that's all I'm working on. I'm working on reasonable numbers right now. Is it going to change a little bit by a million or two here or there? Very well possibly could. We have no clue. Same as I could also tell you some of these guys that could all of a sudden be less at that point than what we're thinking as well. You know? That's also a possibility. So, you know, we'll have to see what happens overall in this whole game here. But I just, I don't know. To me, I don't see it as a, I don't see him getting a massive deal from somebody else that somebody else is like, you know, we got to go ahead and let go of Saquon. I think it's going to, no one's going to go that crazy. I think they're going to see the age, they're going to see the injuries, you know, and if they want to go crazy, they'll go crazy and they'll go one or two year deal and that's it. And I don't think Saquon wants a one- or two-year deal. If somebody offered him two years $25 million, yeah, he might take it. But I would match that. But I would add a void year to the third year to get it down to the numbers we're talking about here. That's all I would do. So like I said, I don't see him going anywhere. I really don't. I think the Giants want to keep him. He's the face of the franchise. I think that's where we're going to be at. Next guy we got. Isaiah Simmons, who I got to be honest, when I'm looking at numbers of what to pay this man, I have no clue what he's going to get. To be very frank on that, we talked about it already because we already had a linebacker episode. We shot that already. We pre-recorded it. It's going to be coming on for you guys on Wednesday. But this is a guy that because of the history, some team may go, you know, I think I can fix him. Same as the Giant fans were like, we can fix him. And you're also getting some teams like, who the hell wants that trouble? Yeah, you're going to get that. One man's trash, another man's gold, and one man's gold, another man's trash. That's life. So I got him at one year, $3.5 million. And I think that's a fair assessment of where he should be at. Again, could I be wrong? Always can be. Every single year, there's players that we have no clue how much they're going to get. And we go, oh, my God. Was it Christian Kirk a couple years ago? We got $100 million from the Jaguars. We're like, what the hell? No one saw that coming. No one. Yeah. Actually, he's been producing. I'll give him credit. He's been producing. But like I said, one more year with Xavier Simmons. Let's see how he does with a new defensive coordinator. I don't want to dedicate long-term to him, though, because, yeah, again, a new defensive coordinator. If he can't use him right, you end up wasting the money. So I think he'll do it, honestly. I think he enjoyed his time in New York, and I think he'll stay put. um yeah his biggest thing when he came back from carolina was like they're like oh you're gonna be safety you're gonna be a linebacker you're gonna you're a quarterback today apparently like he was just all over the field that he couldn't master one position that yep at least his time over here he was a swiss army knife but he was you know we we lined him up he was used better because that's kind of where he mostly played in that wink defense Yeah. So now we just got to go ahead and see what's going to happen with a new system because that's going to be a new system, of course, now with Shane Bowen coming in. So what does Bowen bring at that point? Does Bowen know? Do Bowen knows with him? Hopefully Bowen is not bringing a 735 or a 737. That's Boeing. Wrong bow. Anyway, next up, we got A'shaun Robinson, who I want to go ahead and re-sign this guy. But here's the thing. I'm going to give you guys a catch with this one. I'm going to re-sign him if he re-signs at a reasonable rate. I'm not paying him like we did last year, guys. I don't know if people are aware. We gave him an $8 million cap hit last year and a $4 million dead cap this year on a void year. So we basically paid him $12 million last year, and he was at $12 million. To me, he was a $5 million player. So that's what I'm offering him, a two-year, $10 million contract, and that's it. If he doesn't want to go, I'll find somebody else to replace him. I have no problem doing that. Okay. Bye-bye. So that's where I'm at. But I'm okay with $10 million. And again, keep in mind, he was available late in free agency. So he may want to get it done quicker. If he doesn't, again, I'll find someone to replace him. I don't think he's that irreplaceable. I really don't. Next up is probably the biggest name in free agency for us. Definitely the biggest contract that we'll be signing here. Yeah. Yeah. And that's Xavier McKinney, X-Man. And listen, I was all set on getting rid of X-Man, but I'm going to tell you this. That $10 million difference, it actually potentially could be the difference of us getting Xavier McKinney because I look at him now and go, you know what? Can we fit it now? Because we have $10 million extra to play with. If we're not crazy elsewhere, can we fit that? And I think we can. So what I got him signing is a four-year, $68 million contract, which puts him at a $17 million per year average. And that's right where the cap hit is basically if you franchise him. So it pays him like a top five safety in this league. Now, is that going to be enough for him? I don't know. I really don't. I think he's going to go, I think, for the top deal this offseason. I really do. But I think that's a reasonable offer. And we just would have to see if that's a reasonable offer he would take or not. I don't know. I think he loves his time as a Giant. Do you give him that kind of money? Yep. And he's got to recognize he's going to make more money in New York than anywhere else. Yes, that's what I was going to get. One, you know your team. You know your players. Most of the guys you're around. You know the system. Grant, new defense. But he's got a reputation as a giant. He's a leader already. He's got to go somewhere to start somewhere new for a million less dollars, we'll say a year, maybe two, which he can make up like that in advertisements and just in this market. It's worth a stay. Yeah, I'm with you. So like I said, that's where I got it. I got to keep them both the big names here. That means Casey Crater, an extra long snapper. And guys, if you're wondering, there's no order to these guys. They just wrote them down as they popped up on a list of free agents. Wonder why I'm going all over the place here. That's why. One year, $1.1 million is where I have him at. It's where he gets basically the veteran minimum kind of deal. Again, he threw it for a few years. If he doesn't, we'll find somebody else. Yeah, fellas. Pay cheap price for the long snapper. Yep. Next one is a guy that's with us for a few years that I'd like to keep. But again, a guy I'd like to keep at the right price. And that's Ben Bredesen, who's obviously primarily played the guard position, did play a little bit of center this year. He's another guy that I'm so torn on where he's going to go cost-wise because he's another guy who didn't have a good year with this guy's. So do teams kind of go, okay, well, nobody had a good year with the Giants. Maybe we can fix this guy. Or do they go hands off and not want to go near any of our offensive linemen at that point? I see the latter. I think the latter as well. So I'm going to try to re-sign him at a two-year, six-million-dollar contract. and see what happens there. I think that's a fair assessment of, you know, where to put him there. So we'll see if that's what he thinks and we'll, you know, what the rest of the NFL thinks. Again, that's the problem you run into is you never know what the rest of the NFL thinks in these whole things, you know. We got Gerard Davis here also, linebacker. You may forget we have him on the roster because he didn't play at all this year. I'm going to re-sign him as a backer. He's coming off of a big injury. I'm not going to give him any guaranteed money. He's going to have to fight for a spot in the offseason here. But I think he's a decent backup to have because he's got more experience than a lot of the guys that we have at the linebacker position. And he's a good run stopper. You want to bring in a guy third down one goal line situations at the linebacker positions, this is not a bad guy at that point to bring in for just that position there, just that need. So we're going to bring it back probably a million and a half at that point. It made 1.4 last year, so it'll probably make a little bit more, make 1.5. Next up is a guy that I think Giants fans... Nick McCloud. Yeah, I think Giants fans hold Nick McCloud to higher regard than the rest of the NFL does, to be honest with you. And I'm okay with that. Because every time I say his name, I think about the Highlander. Yes. There can be only one. Here we are. But I tell you, when you look up his PFF, his spotrack, all these things, nobody's got him listed as a possible guy to take over a starting position in the NFL. And I'm telling you right now, he could potentially be a starting corner for the New York Giants next year, depending on how this offseason goes. Now, don't get me wrong. That is not option A, B, or C. But I'm saying it's not unheard of as an option. And I like the fact that he moves around a little, plays a lot, plays safety, plays all these different spots there at that point. I'm going to try to re-sign him at a three-year, $12 million contract, which is a fair number based on what I'm seeing there. Keep in mind, if it wasn't for the New York Giants, this guy might even be out of the NFL. The Steelers flat out cut him, and we signed him mid-year, and he's resurrected his career through his own hard work. I'm not trying to take that away from him at that point. He's resurrected his work, and a lot of it, I think, honestly, is Jerome Henderson. That's the guy I have a lot of respect for, and I think he's done a lot of work with him, and he's done a lot of fixing him. So Jerome Henderson is still a giant. I think he's going to want to stay with him, and I think that's where we're at there. Next up, one of our biggest disappointments of 2023. And that's Isaiah Hodgins. We called him. We called him. Yeah, we called and said people would figure it out. They'd look at him. They'd figure it out. But I still like him. I just think that the Giants fans, because of what he did in 22, put way too much expectation on him. He's a guy who's an end-of-year rotation backup wide receiver, I mean, that's going to go ahead and do some things, but not crazy things. He had 230 yards last year, guys, three touchdowns, 21 receptions. That's not nothing. It's just not great. He's a backup wide receiver. That's what he is. So we're going to re-sign him as well. One year, one and a half million dollars. And again, I like having him on the roster there. Got two more guys here to re-sign. Justin Pugh. I know that might shock some people with this one here. Justin Pugh. I actually want to re-sign him. And a lot of why I want to re-sign him is veteran leadership and versatility. He plays either tackle position. He plays either guard position. And he's by far the oldest guy we'd have on the offensive line. He's looked up to as a mentor. He's a guy that the guys listened to last year. And he's a guy that's probably going to be one more year in the league, if that, to be very frank, before he's out. So if you make a one-year deal, I got him at $3 million. I think it's fair considering where he's at in his career. And I know he wants to start in this league. But you can tell them point blank, like, hey, we got an open competition at left guard. And I'll get to why I say left guard specifically in a minute here, guys. But we got an open competition at left guard. You can be part of that competition. We're not going to take it away from you if you win it. Yeah. I mean, and just to reiterate what you said, like, he is a veteran who is – if you looked at our offensive line when we picked him up, we were god-awful previous and, like – Not saying we were significantly better, but it did improve. We were just awful. It did improve with him there. Yeah, so I'm saying we went from god-awful to just awful. Yeah, so you got that leadership. You got the respect of the younger players. They listened to him. It's almost worth just having there, like you said, as a backup, even though you offer him a starter job. It's 100% worth it. Oh, yeah. And then the last guy is also going to be a veteran presence here, Matt Breda. We're going to get him one more tour of duty with him at one year, $1.4 million. Again, cheap guy, knows the offense, knows the team. I think that's a pretty good setup here. So we re-signed a lot of the big-name guys here, guys. Now, do I expect all these guys to re-sign? Nope. we're doing a guessing game here to a certain degree here. So we're probably going to lose some of these guys because somebody might overpay them or something and replace them with similar players. But that puts us at $53 million in average salaries per year. We just add it with these guys here. So we're going to call it $35.9 million the first year because, again, you get that down the first year. The first year is much more down than the last years are. So we're going to move on to guys that we're going to go ahead and now sign and draft and add to that roster there to improve this roster. That's the fun part here. Before we do that, though, we're going to pay the bills here. And we're also going to let you know that we have a sponsor for the show here. Oh, yes. We do have a sponsor here. john anderson I know a lot of people have been asking where he's been at uh he popped in just a little bit while ago so he has become a silver level member of the two giant goofball group there oh yes the silver belt there and he and he took advantage of signing up for the whole year as well which is a discounted rate guy so I don't know if people are aware of that there so uh so appreciate johnson with us pretty much since we've gone to video there a little over a year ago there so um I know he doesn't always get a chance to watch live there but I know he watches afterwards man much appreciation yes we're here for you man as well so uh roberto salutes you Yes. John S. Anderson Jr. is the sponsor of the program here today. Let's pay those bills real quick. And then, like I said, we're going to go ahead and get into guys. We're going to add on to this roster here. By the way, John picked a good episode to sponsor because this is going to be a fun one here. This is going to be the main one on YouTube for a while. That's what I'm saying. Good job picking this one. Enjoying the show? Thanks. Looking for more goofball action? Consider a membership at buymeacoffee.com slash two giant goofballs. Memberships start at just $5 and give you additional goofball access. One-time support payments also available starting at just $3. Buymeacoffee.com slash two giant goofballs. There we go. There we go. All right. Let's get into guys that we're going to add here. We do have one comment real quick. We'll go into... Timothy Frith, what's up, man? It says, should the Giants sign Jacobs, Ploward, or Henry to replace Barkley? Now... If Barkley wants more money than we think he's worth, and one of these guys is going to fill that position, it depends on what you're going to get. But I think, honestly, if that's the case, you go down. I don't think I would. I think I would go draft maybe – draft a guy we think is a potential guy, and I would also go ahead and maybe get a guy – you know, a cheaper guy that's a veteran, been with the league for a few years kind of guy that's shown to be a decent running back and just see what happens. Yeah. I agree for the most part. Listen, Drew and I talked about Jacob's had a better second half of the year, but he started off so slow. Pollard had a very – Pollard proved almost last year, and I think he will be a cowboy again this year, but the way Jerry Jones spends his money, that he's – Pollard's more of the Robin to the Batman, and he's a pretty goddamn good Robin. And Henry, like we already talked about, you don't know when those treads are going to fall off. You're going to be down the highway. He's going to be running real fast, and he's going to blow that tire, and you're going to be stuck paying that guy a lot of money. Going to be no spare. Nope. Not at all. Granted, but if you get those guys at a cheaper deal than Drew and I were talking about in the re-signs and re-structures... Maybe you consider that. That is not a bad option, but I don't think that's an opportunity those guys... I would throw it even back at Saquon. Let's say, for example, Pollard's like, yeah, I'll take three years, $30 million, go back to Saquon. Hey, listen, Tony said to do this. Would you match this? Or let's meet in the middle. It's something. I'm saying it very well could be a negotiating tactic. So we'll see. We'll see what happens overall. Barkley was way better than Pollard last year, and he was even hurt. You know what, though? Pollard... You could say that, but he's got a better yard per carry. Again, this is not me trying to poop on Saquon. This is just me trying to be honest about where everybody's at there. He had a little more yards, not a ton, and he did play in three more games, but his average was a little bit better. You could say they had similar years, honestly, and it wouldn't be crazy to say that. It really wouldn't. Barkley's just a little bit more of a workhorse. The problem with Pollard... Listen, we can compliment Barkley without pooping on the rest. The rest aren't bad. You're right. I'm just saying, Pollard, they tried to use him as the workhorse like they did Zeke. It didn't work. They fell behind. They threw the ball. He's not. Jack didn't throw terrible this year, like normal. They caught off. They realized how to use Pollard. Yeah, into the playoffs. But, yeah. So let's get into guys that we're looking to sign now. So we had our last week our Edge special there, and we talked about the state of the team there. We mentioned this guy here. It's a guy that we wanted to go ahead and get. So guess what, guys? We're getting them. AJ Espinosa from the Buffalo Bills. So obviously there is a Shane and Espinosa kind of connection there. 15 games last year for him. Just one start. He mostly came off the bench, guys. And one start, that's it. 20 tackles, six and a half sacks, 10 QB hits, seven tackles for a loss, 80.3 PFF grade. Keep in mind, he's behind guys like Von Miller, Leonard Floyd. You know, they got a pretty stacked edge room there in Buffalo. So we got a kind of a smaller sample size there, but you'll get a guy that had an 80.3 PFF grade overall. He's good against the run. He's good against the pass. You take your shot with a guy like that. And I'm looking at a three-year, $24 million deal is what I think it's going to take based on Spotrack and what I'm looking at here online to get this guy. And that's not insane. That gives him two years basically to prove he's a legit player full-time. And in the second year even, if we got to bench him, $8 million isn't crazy, guys. That's not like, oh my gosh, this is an albatross of a contract. If he doesn't prove to be good, it's not a great contract, obviously. Because you've got to look at this. Every single guy you sign, there's a risk. Every single one. Every single one. You have to weigh out that risk. And to me, the risk is not there that high because you've got a guy that's shown he's a good player in the time he's gotten to show it. And he's a guy that's not going to break the bank to get him. So, and now we have a guy to go alongside cave on Thibodeau. And then we have a guy who we can go ahead and put on the bench at that point is easily jewelry and have him come up to where he should be as an edge pass rusher specialist at that point. So that's where we're at. Um, And then we got Jermaine Illuminor, which we've talked about this guy since the day that we signed Brasillo as an offensive line coach. This guy is not a stud, but he's solid. He's a legit starter. And we haven't had that in the right tackle side in the last two years at all, it's safe to say. At least. We're at three years, $15 million is where I'm looking at the information and where I'm seeing here. 68.5 PFF grade in the year. So again, this guy is not the, oh my God, this guy's going to go to the Pro Bowl and fix our offensive line issues. I'm not trying to board him as that. We're not going to fix all those issues in one offseason, guys. We're not. And there's so many issues. You're going to fix what you can. And then next year, you look to try to build on that and build up again. That's where we're at. But 68.5 guys with his PFF grade, it would have had him as the second best offensive lineman in our entire roster to only Andrew Thomas last year. So nothing to poop at. Nothing to go, oh, my God, and get excited. Nothing to poop at. Next up is the guy, if we do get this guy, this is the guy to get excited about. This is potentially the best offensive lineman on the entire free agent market. And we're going for it. We're going for the run. We're going streaking to the gymnasium. Let's go. And it's Kevin Dotson, who was the right guard for the Los Angeles Rams. 85.2 PFF grade, guys. That would have given him the best on the Giants, including Andrew Thomas. That's an average of $16.4 million a year. We're going to pay him in four years $65.6 million. So we're going to pay. We're going to pay. And now we have the right side of the line fixed. Potentially. Again, always risk with free agents. But you went in and get the best right guard you possibly can. You went in and get a solid right tackle that has experience with two different places. Just keep in mind, Lumador was also with the Patriots as well. So you got two different places he succeeded with your offensive line coach. And this is a whole lot better of an offensive line, guys. A whole lot better. Like, sign me up in a heartbeat for this compared to what we had last year. Because a lot of the guys we had starting guys, we still have at the bench now where they should be until they prove otherwise. Um, but yeah, Kevin Dotson is just, I'm telling you guys, if we get this guy, you're going to see what I mean like this. He's a great run blocker. He's a great pass blocker. He's an all around great player and he improved so much this year. He really did, and the Rams got him a good cheap deal last year, but that's not going to happen going forward. He's going to be, like I said, he's going to be well, well paid. Honestly, might even be a little more than the 65.6. I'm going off of, again, Spotrack saying he's worth $16.4 million per year. I just times that by four, and that's my guess is where he's going to be at. So it could be a little more, it could be a little less. We'll have to find out there because it's only one year he had at this elite level. But I think someone's going to take that shot. And I think considering all the issues we had in the offensive line, it should be us. It really should be. And it's going to be a scary move to make because there's definitely a risk paying that much money to the guy off of one elite year. But he wasn't bad prior to that one elite year. And that's one of the things I look at with a risk-reward kind of scenario. The risk is you go back to what he was where he was a good guard, not a great guard. The reward is you got a great guard. Worth it. Got to take a shot every so often. We got one more free agent here. That's Shelby Harris, defensive lineman, played for the Browns last year, played also prior for the Seahawks, for the Broncos. He's been around the block a little bit here. A little longer than two-thirds. He's in his 30s now, but we need to have a third guy on this defensive line. Last year was A'shawn, Leonard Williams for most of it, and Dexter Lawrence. Leonard Williams is gone. So this is the guy we're going to replace him with, which is ironic because he was a former Seahawk himself, and that's where Leonard Williams went to. And we got him on a two-year, $10 million deal. Now, he was a backup last year for the Browns. He did not play full on at that point. Don't get me wrong. He was still good for them. They were just a stacked defense. That's where they're at. So now he goes to defense. It's not quite as stacked. He can get them more play time. Try to get one or two years with us. Then maybe try to go get... You know, they're going to try to go ahead and get a guy that's maybe getting one more last payday at that point. 17 games in the season, seven starts, 28 tackles, one and a half sacks, three QB hits, six tackles for loss, a 70.5 PFF grade. And that's where we're at, guys. So that's $34 million in average salaries there overall. So we're going to say $22.7 million the first year money because, again, it goes down. So we did about two-thirds of that just trying to figure out exactly where we're going to be at there for that potential first year. So let's go through a couple comments here. We do have a couple comments before we get to the draft here. So I saw that. So Connor says... one year subscription john s anderson jr you could have joined tinder lol listen we provide more love than tinder does it's a different type of love but we provide more love than tinder does we're here three nights a few four nights a week okay How many people you meet on Tinder hear that often? Just saying. Connor says, not for nothing, but Eric Gray ran a 98-yard touchdown for me the other day on Madden 24. He got hit three times and kept going. Woo-hoo. That's how you know that Madden is not real. Numar says, I would rather go get Michael Pittman or Justin Jefferson. Well, you know... Pittman I didn't get for a reason that we're going to get into in a minute here. I didn't look at him as a guy to go get. I do think that there's somebody better available to us, potentially, depending on how things work out this offseason. But I do think Pittman is a good option for us, potentially. I think Calvin Ridley is an even better option for us at that wide receiver if you want to go get a wide receiver one through free agency as opposed to maybe, I don't know, the draft. but like I said there's all options uh justin jefferson I I'm not too keen on that move for us right now just because he's gonna get paid I'm telling you like 30 million dollars a year guys if you go get justin jefferson kick kiss the rest of the moves goodbye That's how much money he's going to command, basically. It's going to be, you know, okay, do we not get Xavier McKinney and Saquon and try to do some signings otherwise and some cheaper guys at that point there? I mean, that's where we're at. I'm not opposed to Justin Jefferson, the player. I'm opposed to Justin Jefferson, the payment plan. If we can put him on Kmart Wayway or something like that, then maybe if we're paying this guy $30 million a year, that's going to get rough. That's going to change some things. Now, if we were to hypothetically, maybe I'll talk about this in the next segment, draft somebody and they don't work out the first year and you want to next year go out that kind of rain when you got all this extra money because Daniel Jones is gone, Darren Waller might be gone next year as well, and you're freed up like $50 million in cap space, then what the hell? It's not the year to make a deal with this year. It's just not. Deb says, where's the info on the annual payment? I cannot find it. And I don't know if she's talking about free agents or if she's talking about the buy me a coffee. So let me know on that, Deb, which one you're asking there for so I can help direct you there. Connor says, is Jefferson available? If no, Pittman would be good, but I think our guys are going to be great after they beef up O-line finally. Justin Jefferson is rumored to be available via trade. That's where this talk is coming from, because he wants a ton of money. Connor says, did the dog come to the door? Roberto, or is that the boogeyman? Could be the boogey dog. I was about to say, he gets down. He's a disco dog. Boogie on down. Dougie Boogie. Connor says, F buying expensive players one year they do good, build through the draft, or get guys that are real good for the team or practice squads that you know your spies can vouch for. I'm not opposed to that for the most part, but you're going to have to at some point bite the bullet when you're as bad as our offensive line was last year. And that's where I'm at. This is a bullet bite. Might come back to bullet bite after the butt, but it's a bullet bite. Will you pay... People, a lot of them in the offseason, there's usually two reasons. You think you're that close to being that playoff caliber team that could go to the Super Bowl, or you're that desperate to improve that situation that that person could help coach and train everyone around them. Yeah. Like I said, there's multiple ways to do things, and none of the ways are wrong. It's just you got to look at that point and how you want to do it, you know, and what you think is the best way to do it. And is the right or wrong is just what you think. And like I said, I'm at the point now where we've been trying to fix the offensive line. We have a guy who's an elite guard last year. You have to take the shot. You got a Pro Bowl caliber guy who plays the position that is the albatross of your roster. You have to take that shot. Yeah, that's where we're at. Connor says hey I played Madden in all pro mode gonna do all Madden level next it's hard games a lot it's time especially in my 50s I used to love doing Madden and just play GM that's kind of what this episode is too but it's like I used to play just GM mode all the time sim the games I'm here to build a team damn it Uh, Deb says membership on buy me a coffee. So, and I'll let you know in case anybody else on the show here also is interested in this. What you do is you go, when you go to the buymeacoffee.com slash two giant goofballs, when you go to the homepage there, you up to the very top, it'll say membership membership. You hit there. You join one of the memberships. I know Deb has. She's one of our members here. And when you go to become a member, a pop-up, it'll say the monthly and it'll say the annual. So it's all just a matter of which one you want to sign up for. That's all. So let's see. Connor says, Giants better win another Super Bowl sooner than later. I'm not getting any younger. I don't think any of us are getting younger except for Benjamin Button. That's just life sometimes. Connor, don't pay for big guy until we know we're ready to get far in the playoffs or Super Bowl. I think you got to take a shot occasionally. Connor, that's 50% of what I said because sometimes you either are that close or you're that bad at one spot that you have to bring veteran leadership to improve that spot. You got to. And that's where we're at, guys. You want to fix this offensive line, we're going to have to spend some money. Or we're going to have to keep on redrafting, guys. You want to keep drafting guy after guy after guy after guy? You want to have another bad year like this? Keep in mind, when you sign a guy, even like a guy we said at Dotson at the high thing for four years, we signed a big contract for Daniel Jones. We're already talking about getting rid of him after two years. Just because it's a four-year deal doesn't mean you're paying him for four years. You give him two years to see if he can continue and then you let him go if he's not. We're not stuck paying that money for four years necessarily. Unless they ever change out and the NFL Players Association gets a pair of balls and decides to show the owners what's up. I doubt they will, though. All right, let's get into the draft. Because this is a fun one. We're talking about wide receivers a minute ago here. So, yeah, this is what we're doing, guys. We're going in. We're getting our player we want. And we're doing it. by draft, not playing $30 million for a wide receiver. Here's the very first pick that we have, pick number six. We're getting Malik Neighbors, wide receiver at LSU, 20 years old, 6'1", 188 pounds. He's got the size, guys. That's the size you want for a legit NFL receiver there. 89 receptions, 1,569 yards, 14 touchdowns, a 92.9 PFF grade, guys. That's a legit receiver. Now, will that carry over to the NFL? You never know. But I'll tell you this. We've already began watching some tape on these guys. And from watching the tape, I honestly think he has a higher ceiling than Marvin Harrison Jr. Now, he also has a lower floor than Marvin Harrison Jr. It's the boom or bust kind of thing like that. But I think that he's a guy that I'm going to try to word this carefully because I don't want to be a douche about it, basically. But Marvin Harrison Jr., the name says it right there. He grew up with one of the best wide receivers to ever play this game. He was brought up and built and programmed as a child, basically, the second he started playing football to be one of the best wide receivers to ever play this game. Neighbors didn't have that. Neighbors didn't have where Pete and Manny came over for dinner and threw some footballs in the backyard with them. There's a difference in how these guys were brought up. And I'm not trying to take anything away from Marvin Harrison Jr. when I say that. But you've got to accept the reality of what it is. So Malik Nabors has been almost as exciting as Marvin Harrison Jr. was last year. The main difference with him is he does need a little bit of work on creating separation on some of the shorter routes, where it's just a matter of a small move as opposed to a quick move and going for a slant or a straight nine route down the field. That's the kind of stuff he needs a little work with. But we can work on that. And he's an elite receiver. He beat the crap out of the SEC. If you can beat the crap out of the SEC, I will take it. This man shattered Alabama. This is what I'm saying. When you're going to go ahead and take a guy that high, you want to have confidence. Now, I'm not saying that there's not other guys I would take necessarily if they were available, like a quarterback, for example. In this scenario here, the quarterback was not available. Malik Neighbors was. So we're taking our number one wide receiver. We haven't had a number one wide receiver since we let OBJ go. And guess what? They're both in LSU. The next LSU stud. LSU is where these stud receivers keep coming from too, guys. Keep in mind that. Next up. Pick number 39. and we've made this one quite often, and we're making it again, Michael Penix Jr., QB out of Washington. Now, when I made this pick, he was the only one of the quarterbacks, the big six there, that was available left, and I'm perfectly fine with that. 23 years old, 6'3", 218 pounds. Would like him to get a little bit more meat in the bones, maybe a little pasta night with the Giants or something. Yeah. 65.4. Yeah. 65.4 completion percentage, 4,903 yards, 36 touchdowns, 11 interceptions, and a 91.1 PFF grade. Now, here's one thing I want to be very clear to people because I keep on hearing – the injuries the injuries guys he was he was not injured in for two years straight 100 healthy for two years straight he learned how to get his stay healthy he learned how to protect his body and then the benefit I like of this whole thing is daniel jones is still on the roster guys we don't have to rush panics If the line sucks, you can hold off on the Pennix red shirt if you have to even. But you got a guy there. Because we all know Daniel Jones is not the long-term answer. He's not. Now you have a guy that you can see, take your time with, see what he is, and see if he is the long-term answer. Because if you look at some of the best quarterbacks in this league, they were not rushed into play. For every single C.J. Stroud, there's 10 more Bryce Youngs. Just being honest. I'm not saying you got to sit in the whole rookie year, but you can take him in a little slow. Let the offensive line time to develop. Let bleak neighbors have time to develop at that point. And I think he's a guy that I think overall, you look at him and you go, this has potential. Is he a definite? No. If he was a definite, he'd be a top five pick, though, guys. When you're picking a quarterback in the second round, you're taking a chance. But it's not a huge chance because it's a second-round pick. How many second-round buffs have we had? Take your shot at the most important position in the entire NFL. That's where we're at. Next up, keep in mind we've got a second round pick there thanks to the trade there with the Leonard Williams deal to the Seattle Seahawks there. And We're going to go ahead and take a corner here, guys, because Adoree Jackson is gone. You notice we didn't talk about him in the re-signing. He's gone. We'll talk about that in Giants news, but it's already been pretty said. He's gone. We talked about that, though, for a while ourselves, way before people that supposedly have ins, but yeah, he gone. So we got TJ Tampa, cornerback out of Iowa State, 21 years old, 6'2", 190 pounds, like perfect size, perfect size for a corner. 33 tackles, two interceptions, seven passes defended. He had a 75.8 PFF. I'm only knocking him. It's a little bit low. It's a little bit low. But I have a lot of faith in Jerome Henderson to fix that. And what you can't beat is the size and the natural talent this guy has. What he needs is some of his mechanics worked on. And you go ahead and put him in the mix at that point with Trey Hawkins, Nick McLeod, let them all battle it out for that second corner position, and let Banks do his thing as the number one. And I think you have potential for a nice young duo for the next couple of years there at that point. So, yeah, I think that's I think it's a good fit. I really do. Next up, pick number 70 or third round pick here. getting insurance guys because we can't keep running saquon barkley down to the ground especially if we do sign him to a long-term deal because you want to kind of keep him healthy for a couple years and part of the issues he's had is that we depend on saquon for so much it's time to take some of that off of him I think And at number 70, I'm going with Jonathan Brooks, running back out of Texas. 20 years old, 6 foot even, 207 pounds. And he doesn't have a ton of the tread taken off the tire like some of these college guys has. Keep in mind, Texas has been a running back school for a few years now that's just been picked up some great guys. He had two running backs just last year drafted. So in the first two years at Texas, he only had 51 rushes. They did very good in those 51 rushes, but obviously a very small sample size. This year, 187 rushes, 1,139 yards to 6.1 yards per carry average and 10 touchdowns. 25 receptions, 286 yards, one touchdown, 91.5 PFF grade overall. That's a guy that you could sit behind Saquon for a year or two and eventually have him take over while he's still in a rookie deal. Yeah. Yeah. And if Saquon gets hurt, Jonathan Brooks has an attempt. He should be able to do his thing. Because let's be honest, some people get mad when we say it. Saquon is a little injury prone. It's partially the position, partially his body. It is what it is. We've got to have a backup plan. We can't go in with just Saquon and Matt Breda. Breda's not the answer. Eric Gray's certainly not the answer. Neither is Brett Will. I don't like signing a second guy, especially if we're going to get... especially if we're going to go ahead and sign a big deal for Saquon Barkley. Don't sign him to a $10 million kind of deal and then go ahead and sign somebody else for $5 million because backup is too much money on the running back. Exactly. We talk about like $13 million too much, but let's sign Barkley for nine and get the backup for six. That makes sense. All right. So we got two more picks left, guys. And Rob's got to take care of his dog real quick. And then we're going to go ahead and get into your guys' comments and questions. I do see some comments and questions here. First up, pick 108. Austin Booker. He's a defensive end slash edge from Kansas. We got it. We got to beef up that room, guys. We got to beef up that room. We can't go in with the same group we have now. So we got A.J. Espinosa in our free agency. Now we go ahead and get Austin Booker, who last year had 56 tackles, 12 tackles for loss, 8 sacks, 2 forced fumbles, and an 82.2 PFF grade. he's six foot six he's a really tall for a defensive end guys but actually has really good bend for that size which is kind of weird uh 240 pounds uh the only thing I couldn't find on was age but I did find out he graduated high school in 2020 so I'd assume he's around uh you know that um 21 age at that point there uh could be off by a year or two there get the direction obviously but Yeah, young player. I think he's going to drop down to this far in the draft, mostly because of his height. NFL's got this weird thing. If you don't fit into this mold they have of the perfect player for your position, you end up dropping. And he doesn't quite fit because of that height. So he's going to be a guy that's going to drop a little bit there. We get him at 108. He ends up being our fourth edge guy behind Ojalary, Espinosa, and Thibodeau. And now you've got a good foursome there at that point of guys who are well-rounded, can get to the quarterback. And hopefully improve a lot from where that room was last year because, oh my gosh, not good at all, guys. Not good at all. Last pick we got. Aeneas Smith, who is from Texas A&M. He's pick 185 for us, our last pick there. He's a wide receiver. He's a running back. He's a returner. He's that kind of gadget kind of guy there. 22 years old, 5'10", 190 pounds. He's a little bitty guy there. Last year, 52 receptions, 795 yards, two touchdowns, five rushes, 21 yards. Back in 2020... At that point, he had 49 rushes, 293 yards, which is a six yards per carry average and four touchdowns. He's really mixed it up between the wide receiver and the running back thing, but he kind of settled into wide receiver, but he still goes in as a running back. Kind of like that Swiss Army guy, Wondell Robinson, but I don't think he's as good as Wondell. But I think a guy like him fits the offense that we run. And I think you get him this late in the day and see what you got, maybe hit some gold. You don't hit some gold. Here's the big thing is his returning ability. 20-point returns for 285 yards, 14.3-yard average. Seven kickoff returns for 103 yards. That's a 14.7-yard average there. So he's done kickoff, and he's got more experience. That's just last year. But here's a guy we can put into that conversation as far as a special team or to do the return game. Potentially add some ability. You know, as far as wide receiver, which is my big thing with Oshefsky, our punt return from last year, he doesn't provide anything on offense. And, you know, you can bring Oshefsky still in at a no guarantee deal, let him fight it out and see what happens between him and Smith. But to me, that's not a bad move, guys. It's not a bad move. We'll see what happens there. Now, I looked up our average. It should be about $8.9 million in cap space there for the class, what I'm looking at there. What I did was I took the average draft class, and I added more money because we're picking early. And I didn't take anything away because we don't have a seventh-round pick. We usually do try to recoup some of the money otherwise. So I'm around $8.9 million, $9 million right around that time there. So we're looking at overall spent. We spent $67.5 million. Remember, we had $40.8 million available. So we're doing some restructuring to that point. Some of it's also to come from minor cuts because some of the guys who have been mentioned by not bringing it back are cutting because they're like, you know, $500,000 here, $1 million there, that kind of guy. We're not going to go through that. This will be a seven-hour show, guys. 27-hour show. yeah seriously but yeah that's where we're at um and I think that you're looking at a much better team overall here so let's go into the comments here real quick and then we'll go ahead and you know talk about about the uh talk about the the uh the overall roster there at that point let's get back into here yep so connor says it's slowing down popping up for some reason here that's not what connor said but you know he might I don't know what's about to say for some reason though He says, why is it not... There we go. Let's see. There we go. The only good thing about Giants sucking, I finally decided to watch other games to see what I was missing for years. I will always be Big Blue, but I used to never watch other games until playoffs. Yeah, I'm a football addict. I can't help myself. Yeah. Post to Horst. What's up, man? It says, I like Brian Thomas Jr. better than neighbors. He's 6'4", has more yards than TDs. Why is neighbors ranked higher? You know, to be honest with you, it's just a personal feeling. You know, I look at some of what he did in the big games, for example. So let's talk about Alabama, for example. I mentioned Alabama. Let me pull up the stats here real quick on Alabama where we're talking. Alabama game. You're talking one of the elite defenses in college. One of those scenarios where you're facing as close as you can to the NFL level of talent in college, basically. Neighbors, 10 catches, 171 yards, and one touchdown. Brian Thomas Jr., three catches, 36 yards. Now, I'm not saying that one game makes everything different. Do not agree that wrong. But I do think Neighbors is a better receiver overall. And, you know, he was treated like their number one over Thomas at LSU this past year. So, real quick as well, as far as you know, more years and that kind of stuff. So, you know, Thomas has been in there three years. This was his first 1,000-yard season. He has less yards than neighbors has also. He's by about 400. It's not even close. We're talking about, you know, 100 yards or so. He has about 20 receptions less than he has. The only thing he has on him is touchdowns. He had 17 touchdowns. Again, not taking away from Brian Thomas. He's a good player. He's not a bad player. He's going to be probably an elite first-round pick as well. But if I'm going to take the 11-yard receiver or the 1,500-yard receiver, I'm taking the 1,500-yard receiver. Take the one that destroyed Alabama. That's what I'm taking. I was surprised Jerry Rice didn't have Kid make it big. I figured he'd have a bunch of kids as well. I know he has a son or grandson who now is at UFC. I think he's in this draft. Yeah, Jerry Rice, he's got a kid in the draft. I haven't done homework on him yet, but maybe at one point. But you don't hear about him too much. I know he was at the Senior Bowl. Jerry Rice showed up as well because of that, but yeah. If he's going to be anything in this league, he'd be a backup receiver, probably, based on where he's at in the draft right now. We might not even get to him at this point when we do our draft stuff here. Deb says, still not sure on Pennix. He looked overwhelmed in the championship game against Michigan. He looked like Daniel Jones. Didn't have a good game, but that's one game. He absolutely destroyed it in the prior game, though. He had a lot of good games this year. Yeah, same as I said, I won't judge neighbors versus, you know, versus Brian there as far as Brian Thomas there versus neighbors in one game against Alabama. Same thing here. I'm not going to judge fully based on that. But yeah, wasn't his best. And again, if he had his best, he'd probably a first round pick. Be very frank. If he lit up Michigan and won a national championship, he's probably easily a first round pick. So may not be the top two or three, but even number four, whereas JJ McCarthy is probably number four right now. And him and Bo Nix are fighting it out between five and six. Connor says she's looking at Brian Thomas Jr. Stats pretty good. Yeah, like I said, they're not bad. He's going to be a first round pick. Connor says, yeah, but I think he was playing with broken on very bruised ribs. That defense was hitting him. No QB could play hit a lot. That's why we need blocking. I take five offensive linemen. Yeah, no. Penix was definitely very hurt in that game, but you won't hear him say it. But he did. I funny heard it was like broken ribs. Yeah. Connor says, wait, did you say we got Espinosa from the Bills? In this scenario, we haven't got him in real life. This is our offseason. This is hypothetical. Yes, we signed A.J. Espinosa as the edge opposite Kayvon Thibodeau. yeah um connor says why didn't they make the cap 500 million since these guys are all getting paid bigger these days why don't they I think is what he means it's got too many players I mean they're not going to do too much at that point you know um it's all it's all again it's all on the contract with the nflpa the player association and again I think that um I think that the numbers keep going up and up and up, and I think the players need to do a lot more fighting, which means you might have a strike, to be honest. If I was part of the players' union, we'd have a strike. I'll put it that way, point blank. Because these guys are never the same after their career is over, especially the long-term guys. They get paid less than baseball players who sit around. Granted, they play 162 games, but their biggest issue is swinging the bat too hard and pulling a muscle. Let me stop. It's not a difficult position. Obviously, I'm being somewhat facetious. I know there's actual legit injuries in baseball. But it's kind of a wimpy sport. It's kind of a wimper, wimpy sport compared to football. Well, 162 games. Hockey and football, that's the two that he held. Pretty much. And hockey makes sense in the NFL. But, no, you're right. It's in the NHL. Oh, yeah, hockey makes sense in the NFL. Yeah. And meanwhile, they can literally just throw that in the gloves and fight. Connor says... And they should. That's what makes the game entertaining. Connor says, maybe New York Giants would do a Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Won't you be my neighbors? That'd be fun. Let's see. Hostaharis says, great answer. Thanks. Yeah, like I said, not a knock on Brian Thomas. I just think that he is... Neighbors is a much better receiver. I think Thomas will probably be potentially somebody's one. I know we don't obviously look at case numbers, but a lowercase one, I think that's where he's at. I think he'll be that good of a player. I don't think he'll be a top 10 receiver in this league, but I think he'll be probably potentially a top 30, top 40. Like I said, not a knock on him. If anything, you could say Jane Daniels. He's got all these good receivers. Is that why all of a sudden he became good last year? Just saying. Part of the evaluation. People say it for Penix all the time. No one says it for Jaden Daniels. I don't know why. People are like, oh, look, Penix got three guys and they get drafted. Well, yeah. He also was the guy thrown to those three guys for the last two years. So, that's a little bit of my snarkiness there. Like I said, I got to defend the impugned honor of Penix sometimes. Let's go to the final 53. So, here's where we're at. We got Daniel Jones, Michael Penix Jr., and Tommy DeVito at the quarterback position. So, you know, you got Danny DeVito. Tommy DeVito basically could make a break as far as this roster. If we want to keep a third receiver so we keep him, that's where a third quarterback, that's where he's at. If not, he might be dropped too, to be very frank with you guys. He very well may be dropped. To the practice squad. Yeah, if no one else picks him up. Running back room, Saquon Barkley, Jonathan Brooks, Gary Braywell in his last year, and Matt Breda, who we re-signed. You notice he was not there. Eric Gray. I'm moving on. I'm admitting the mistake, and I'm moving on. I have seen enough in the first year. I'll bring him to camp to reprove my point, and he's gone. Cut him out. Exactly. Wide receiver room, Malik Neighbors, Darius Slayton, Wondell Robinson, Jalen Hyatt, Isaiah Hodges, and Aeneas Smith. That's pretty good. That's pretty good there. Tight end room, Darren Waller, Daniel Bellinger, and to be determined. What I mean by that, guys, is listen, we're going to pick up a low-level backup guy, hopefully somebody I should block at the line. I can give you like 100 people who would fit this role. It's just going to be somebody at a very minimum deal. That's where we're at. Offensive line. Starting lineup will be Andrew Thomas. I'm going to put Evan Neal at left guard hypothetically in this scenario. He's got to win that position, guys. He's going to be in a freaking battle. We're not handing Evan Neal a starting job anymore. It's bad enough we have to hand him a backup job. You should haze him. You should haze him as he tries. He has to cook all the burgers. Yes. You should throw burgers at him as he's trying to make the tackles. John Michael Schmidt is obviously at the center position. Kevin Dotson now at the right guard. And Jermaine Elmenor at the right tackle position. We got Ben Bredesen, Josh Izudu, Marcus McKeithen, and Justin Pugh as backups here. That's a lot better than last year, guys. That's a hell of a lot better than last year. Hopefully they can stay healthy. Defensive line. I moved it back to where most teams would be. We talked about this in the D-line show. They don't keep a lot of defensive linemen in Wink's defense. It's just not what they do. He'll go down to two linemen. He don't care. He just does all kinds of wacky things. Dexter Lawrence, obviously. A'shaun Robinson. Shelby Harris. Rakeem Nunez-Roches. DJ Davidson. Jordan Riley. We got six guys there now. Edge positions. We got, you know, I just made a mistake. I'm going to pay for it here. I forgot to put Austin Booker in who we drafted here. This is the problem when you record live at that point there. So we got, obviously, Kayvon Thibodeau. and AJ Espinosa. We got, obviously, Aziz Ojolari. We got Austin Booker. And we still got Boogie Basham and Timote Fox as well. What I like about Fox is he can actually play linebacker as well. Um, Linebacker slash edge slash safety. Isaiah Simmons. Yeah. Straight up regular linebackers. Bobby Okereke, Micah McFadden, and Jared Davis. Cornerbacks. Deontay Banks, TJ Tampa, Nick McCloud, Cordell Flott, Trey Hawkins III, and another to be determined. Again, just a cheap backup guy. Nothing crazy. Safety. Xavier McKinney, Jason Pinnock, Dane Belden, and Javarius Owens. Basically, keeping it like it was last year. Most of the same as far as the special teams as well. Graham Gonneau, Jamie Gillen, Casey Crider coming back, obviously. And then as far as returners, Aeneas Smith and Gary Brightwell take up the returner jobs at that point. Unless we make some kind of different move at that point and decide we want to keep Gunner or something like that. But to me, I want to get away from guys who are special team only. I want guys who play special teams, don't get me wrong, but there are plenty of people in this league that are good at special teams, and we can go ahead and actually use them on offense or defense as well. For whatever reason, the Giants just haven't done that lately. Yeah, your RB3 could run the ball, whatever. Put it back there, but whatever. Get a fourth round. Get a fifth round pick. It's running back to the It's your fourth backup to the running back, but whatever. It's fine. Not bad. What? What are you complaining about? Eric Gray. We got him in the fifth round. The fourth running back last year. His poop is gone. First best teams. It's a clutter. You just pick up the guy in the fifth round. Be your fourth running back. Yeah, but we just don't have that many picks this year is part of it. Now, part of it is because we didn't do any draft trades. Let's be honest. Shane always trades. He'll probably get one or two extra picks. I was just being salty. I noticed that. Salty. It's like Himalayan sea saltiness there. Oh, extra. All righty, guys. Let's get into a little bit of Giants news and NFL news here before we head on out for the night. It's time for the news. Delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. but yes it's time for the news um giants are likely to resign at doria jackson according to paul schwartz of the uh new york post and the latest no news here like it's just that we've been called about for how long now uh halfway through the season yeah basically so yeah I don't know why it's news now but it is uh adam scheffner also reiterating the giants are unlikely to franchise tag segwana barkley a second time so Ralph Valchiano of Fox Sports says the Giants are not expected to increase the contract offer for Saquon Barkley that he rejected last offseason, a deal that is likely isn't on the table anymore. So in other words, they're expecting his number this year is going to be less than it was last year. Hmm. Yeah, like I said, another year, more injuries. I think he overplayed his hand. I think he realized that's why he changed agents now. I really do think that. Rumors, rumor has it, are the Dolphins maybe looking to trade Jalen Waddell. Oh, yes, the Penguin may be going away. And the Giants are rumored to be frontrunners if that happens. It's interesting because it depends on what we'd have to give up to get him. If you're going to tell me I can give a second-round pick and get him, sure. But if I had to give up a first-round pick for him, like the sixth-round world pick here, I'm not doing that. Not going to happen. Yeah, it's very interesting. Yeah, keep in mind his cheap years are almost over here, guys. as part of the reason why they get rid of them the dolphins are are in cap hell right now so all right so now we got some nfl news that we're gonna head on out for the evening here folks Oh, yeah. And first, long-time NFL writer Peter King retired today after 44 years in the business. Dropped his usual Monday article that he's been doing since the dawn of time and just sprung everybody there. So nobody kind of knew he was coming. But, you know, kudos to a long career for Peter King. I mean, the guy, if you actually, I don't know how many people have actually listened to his stuff in here. Obviously, if you're listening to this, you get a lot of football news, probably through podcasts and video and that kind of stuff there. He was a Sports Illustrated writer for many, many, many years. And I loved his articles because you know what it was? He was he was that guy that you listen to what he had to say. And it's almost like you think he was in the room telling you that while you're having a beer. You know what I mean? He had that ability. He was that common everyday man, but he knew his stuff at the same time. He's like the guy that you did business with on a golf course. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Russell Wilson reiterated that he just desired to stay with the Broncos on Brandon Marshall's podcast, which is a shame for him, but he's not staying. The Kansas City Chiefs and Andy Reid discussing an extension, which is interesting. People are talking about him maybe retiring at the end of the year, but now instead they're talking about an extension. It's amazing. We talked about this before as they went through the Super Bowl. Like, he's not gonna leave until they start they stop winning point blank or he's gonna or he's got a health issue or his wife tells him you gotta go you're a horse and you need to go to the vet yes UCLA hires Eric Bien-Ami as OC. Interesting move. He goes from the Chiefs to the Commanders now to the UCLA Bruins. And, yeah. Things have not worked out well for Eric Bien-Ami. Poor guy. You didn't even hear the guy talked about at all this offseason as a head coach, really. Yeah. Poor guy. Probably should have stayed in Kansas City and kept getting rings as offensive coordinator. Just saying. Hmm. Probably not the worst idea. But he took a chance. Again, we talked about this earlier. You take a chance. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. He took his chance. He lost. He'll be back as a chief soon. Bengals have placed a franchise tag on T. Higgins. So T. Higgins officially staying in Cincinnati, barring any kind of trade at that point. And the Miami Dolphins, we talked about their money issues. They have released cornerback Xavier Howard, who is a former pro bowler. He had a little bit of injury issues lately, but yeah, very good player. Again, I talk about this Miami. He's going to be cutting some people, guys, potentially. and they also have a lot of free agents on the offensive line. That's a team to watch out for their players because they're going to be going somewhere else, I think. All right, let's see. We got a couple comments here, and then we're going to head on out here for the night. Connor says, good point, Drew. QB that dies better with less is better equipped, especially after he gets better wide receivers in a run game with good offensive line. I'm not even saying that. I'm just saying if you're going to dispenx for having a really good group of receivers... Then don't not say that about Jayden Daniels is all I'm saying. Because Jayden Daniels has a first-round talent, top-10 pick, and he has an end-of-the-first-round talent. Whereas Washington, you go to Pennix, he's got another top-10 talent at the wide receiver position, but then he's got probably a second-round pick and probably a third-round pick. So... you could say similar at that point there. So I'm just saying, if you're going to have that concern with Pennix, you should have that concern with Daniels, especially because before this year, especially because before this year, Daniels didn't look good. Guess he looked good last year. Penix. Penix, true. Just saying. It's got to be part of the process there when you look at this stuff. He says, I think we have good talent wide receivers, just I think it needs to block longer so we can pass to them. I still think we need a number one, a true number one. And it's a need, but it's not a, oh my God, if we don't have it, I'm going to be so pissed off. But at number six, depending on what happens with the quarterbacks, that's probably what you're looking at is Malik Neighbors, Roma Dunze, guys like that. Unless you want to draft a tackle again, which I think Connor probably would, but I'm tired of drafting tackles. We've done enough offensive linemen we've drafted in the last couple of years. It's time to get a couple, give Priscilla a year to kind of see what we can do with the guys we have in that room because we have high draft picks in that room. I mean, we're talking guys that have talent. I mean, Evan Neal, obviously, top 10 pick. Andrew Thomas, top 10 pick. John Michael Schmitz, second-round pick. Dotson, top free agent. Illuminor would be a good free agent. You go to the backups at that point. Bredesen is a veteran at this point in this league now. McKeithen. I mean, you've got plenty of guys here, guys, that just have talent. At one point, you got to go. We're missing this. We got to figure out how to fix it. I think you got to stick to the wide receiver spot if you can't move up or down and there's nothing there and the quarterbacks are gone. I think you just take the wide receivers and hope you get one of the big ones. I really think it's what you got to do. Connor says, just don't let Saquon go to Cal Peaks Regal. Oh, yeah. No, yeah, no. Connor says, it'd be funny if Saquon went to the Jets, though. His dad loves the Jets. Then he and the internet can go on the IR together. Yeah. I don't think he does that. I think he cares about his legacy too much. Connor says, I like Peter King, but he's so whiny, too. He is a little whiny. I know. uh connor says guess eric b enemy is not going to be a head coach ah not the way he's going he's going backwards right now guys he's going backwards so um this jazz fan just imagine barclay going to the calls up he's so upset and uh I just yeah I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen there, but I think this is a good off-season plan for us. I really do. I think this team is a whole lot better than what it was last year. We have not only a better year this year with this kind of squad, but I think we have a plan for the future overall. Because you've got to plan ahead, guys. That's what I'm saying. When I say moves like getting Jonathan Brooks in the third round, you're doing that because Saquon is going to be gone in a couple of years. You're prepping. When you get Michael Penix in the second round, you're doing it because Daniel Jones is not the answer and you're trying to see if he is. You go out and get guys in free agency and proven they're not going to cost a lot of money necessarily. Obviously, basically everybody we got except for Dotson. He's the one high-priced free agent we got. And we kept the guys that have been here for a little while that have succeeded because in the end, you have to also show the locker room you're going to reward the guys who do succeed. And I think we did that here. So... Alright, guys. We'll be back again Wednesday night for you guys here. Give you guys our linebacker and special teams overview. We'll be a recorded episode because I got a work thing to go to. Stupid work. Paying the bills and all. Of course. Work in the way. Yeah, so I'll be stuck at a hotel in Ocala, Florida for a couple days here with room service and hot tubs and all. It's going to be horrible. Yeah, you and a bunch of dudes in a hot tub. Yeah, well, As long as they keep their hands to themselves, I don't care. Anyway. So, it's a work thing. They're going to... Hopefully. We'll be back again. It's how you get a raise. More way than once. we'll be back again though live on Thursday again it's just the one episode for you guys there so appreciate it again thank you John S. Anderson Jr. the sponsor of the episode here much appreciated man like I said hope everything is you know is going well and your life continues to and anything that is not you know gets better with time there man appreciate everybody listening in watching in whatever you're doing I don't know if it's available by braille or whatever I don't know Whatever method you're using to listen or watch or whatever to us at that point, we appreciate you guys. We'll be back again, like I said, Wednesday for the linebacker special teams, and then Thursday we'll do our little live show here talking about the secondary. And you know what that means, guys? That means we're done with the state of the team. We can move on to the draft. All the discussions we had today about Malik or Brian, that kind of stuff, that's the conversations we're going to have here starting next week. So buckle up, guys. It's going to be a fun couple weeks as we start discussing All these different draft guys. If you remember, we had a ton of players that we went over there last year. And we may or may not said a few right things in the process. Just saying. Maybe. Texans listened to us. The Panthers didn't. Just saying. So we'll see you guys again Wednesday. Appreciate you guys as always. And as always, Giant fans. Go G-Man! Go G-Man! Thanks for listening to Two Giant Goofballs, a New York Giants podcast. We appreciate your support. Thanks so much.