New York Giants: Dave Gettleman’s growing disconnect
By Ed Stein
Landon Collins leaves for nothing
It was a surprise to absolutely no one that Landon Collins was going to be a free agent at the end of the 2018 season. The Giants had plenty of time to re-sign the man who was the heart and soul of Big Blue’s defense. They didn’t even have to sign Collins for him to remain part of the team.
What’s more frustrating is that Collins wanted to remain with the New York Giants. He had a stated goal to spend his entire career with one team. A marriage like that requires two parties, and NYG obviously didn’t see it the same way.
Co-owner John Mara admitted he didn’t want to lose Collins, but he thought the market was higher than the safety was worth. I don’t see why that prohibited New York from offering the Bama grad a non-exclusive franchise tag. He would have been guaranteed $11.29M (average of top-five safeties salaries) for 2019 under that designation. Collins would still have been able to shop his services. If he received an offer, New York had the right to match or receive a pair of first-round picks.
There is no doubt Collins is a top-five safety in the league. His intangible value above his positional value is almost as much. He was the captain of the defense for a reason.
What happened is nothing. Collins said he never received an offer from the Giants and was heartbroken about it. Never received an offer? That’s just ridiculous. Any GM worth his salt would have made a play for him, especially with a home team advantage. Collins is only 25 and just entering his prime.
Instead, Collins played out the season and walked away for no compensation. Gettleman and the Giants knew they weren’t going to bring the all-pro safety back. Why didn’t the Giants GM trade him at the deadline? There were persistent rumors about it, and teams were interested. It is an unmitigated failure.
After the fact, Gettleman gave excuses for why he didn’t make a trade. First, he said he didn’t like the message it would have sent to his 1-7 team. The only message he should have been sending is “we’re going to rebuild this ship and are committed to the future.”
His second excuse was that the best offer he got was a fourth-round pick, and that wasn’t good enough. The market is what it is, but getting something is certainly better than getting zero. It was a chicken move leaving Collins in a lame duck situation and it was detrimental to the team.