Andrew Thomas contract restructured, will Joe Schoen make a big move for New York Giants?

Intro coming up the New York football Giants and Joe Shane have restructured Andrew Thomas converting some money over to a signing bonus and given a little bit of flexibility is there a big move coming for big blue how are they going to adjust to the losses to injury on defense and maybe even a little talk about Daniel Jones we dive in coming up next [Applause] [Applause] [Music] ah yes my friends it's ogp the one giant podcast where you know that we are your host over here Adam arre over there Andrew MTZ we're healthy we're wealthy we're wise and we're brought to you by person it's an aid driven cyber threat detection engine that improves your vision into your network security environment and allows you to see cyber threats that other tools and platforms just can't do Persona is always Vigilant always learning check out person. today that's p r s o n m.ai and Andy just when we thought you know we're grinding our way down last preseason game there's some injuries to talk about on the defensive side where depth is becoming concern this is something we hadn't touched on since the beginning of the off season Andrew Thomas contract the ability maybe to free up some more money for big blue if they needed to go make another addition on this roster yeah it Andrew Thomas restructure was interesting it's it's almost like like we forgot that that Joe Shane and the team had a little bit of wiggle room to free up space we don't know we we've been we've been hearing from a lot of the people that are the reporters that are closest to the team that are saying don't expect any big moves nothing big is going to happen they have the money to be able to operate in season transactional type things and then all of a sudden we see that they free up you know they restructured about four million in change they get about three million in change in extra cap space and it seems interesting the timing knowing what we saw on the field um you know against the Houston Texans over the weekend there's probably a couple areas that if the Giants were going to spend money that that are areas of concern at this moment but it's it's strange twofold because they had plenty more cap space from Andrew Thomas that they could have utilized that they have chosen not to yet so it's not like they have some big huge acquisition like a Devonte Adams coming in but it it is interesting timing and the amount of money feels like it has more questions than answers to me right now yeah just to give the official it first reported by field Yates of ESPN they converted 4175 million of Thomas' base salary to a signing bonus which creates 3.34 million in cap space for 2024 the restructure will we give the Giants a reported operating salary cap space of about $18 million obviously they've been sitting there just around 10 11 million and then all this effective number start moving around plus they had the handful of roster cuts when the offseason started it felt like they were just at enough and then things have kind of come and gone some other ones we'll get into at a high level though because the initial thing was it felt like the the immediate reaction was okay so what's coming like what is this being done in order to get and it seems like everyone would say well cornerback obviously it had the depth isn't there Cordo flat hasn't been able to be on the field so you can't really see what it's going to look like are you more inclined to think that it is about One Singular move that they want to go make or a narrative that I don't know if it would excite the fan base as much but I'm a little bit curious on of maybe there's a couple of a couple of smart moves they want to make to shore up both sides of the football in a way that maybe is not going to be landing as we just saw Gilmore signing somewhere else I don't think this A10 million contract coming in the door here in order to improve one key position no I I tend to agree with you Adam I don't I don't see the big name I don't see the xaven Howard type type player um who is still considered uh you know towards the end of their Prime that would come in and command you know reasonable reasonably High uh dollar amounts from a salary range yeah I you know to be honest with you with some of the injuries and some of the announcements to me it may not be the sexy answer that everyone wants but I could see the Giants making a move for an interior offensive uh an interior defensive lineman knowing how thin everything is in that group and we'll talk about the injuries in a second that you know you sit there and say well we have Dexter Lawrence like do we really need to spend more money on the interior of the line and the answer is yes because what we talked about on Monday's show was the interior offensive line and the and the linebacking court is what Shane Bowen really needs in his system to be successful you can't have enough depth there especially with players getting hurt and injured the Giants may be looking to make a move across the the the defensive line that was where my initial reaction went what was yours Adam yeah well I mean just the Highlight because you mentioned uh xaven Howard there obviously you talk about a player that's over 31 years old you have CJ Jackson still out there he's almost 29 familiar New York Giant adori Jackson gonna be 29 in in mere moments like when you go and look at the free agent market right now for cornerbacks especially outside quarterback help like there are names there and and I'm not it's interesting because I'm not advocating that any of these names wouldn't be an improvement maybe over the uncertainty the Giants currently have but I don't think it's the move that you're going to then turn around and say in weeks two three and four and go thank goodness because we feel so confident now in the tandem that we have and by the way I went over I want to say maybe Sports Illustrated they're listing top available cornerbacks on the market I mentioned of Dory Jackson Jaylen Mills is secondary players in totality is also listed there Keon croen who was one time giant a couple of years ago is also listed there like it's a pretty bare market in terms of cornerback free agency and secondary help so my initial thought around like hey would you try to make some of these improvements the only other thing I could think of we can talk about in a second is like is there a trade that the Giants want to try to execute here but I think you bring up a couple of good points about what's happened to this team from an injury standpoint where are some of these holes and how do the Giants look at it in terms of walking into week number one and saying okay like we're ready to go forward here understanding that we're gonna have injuries as every team does and we feel confident about the players we have coming in behind him so coming up here in a second let's take a look at not only how Andy feels maybe about to trade for a quarterback potentially but also those injuries that are going on around this roster right now we'll do that here in just one moment Andy I'm a smart guy and when I tell you that there just isn't a great crop of quarterbacks out there on the free agent Market do you think trade is possible before we talk injuries do you think that there could be even one of these let's reverse it we trade it away Phillips to the Dallas Cowboys put in a seventh to get a sixth let's reverse engineer maybe we we're doing something where we end up giving up the higher draft capital and maybe getting a guy that's a margin mover because when you have cut dates looming sometimes it's about giving up a little something to make sure that you get your first crack of the guy notable that the Giants are the sixth in the waiver wire order when it comes to that yeah so the Giants have Will the Giants make a trade the six waiver claim so I think that makes it a little bit less likely that the Giants would go for a trade just because you know there there's a few uh of the of the bottom teams obviously you talk about teams like the Carolina Panthers and others that have uh you know higher waiver claims but maybe Joe Shane is operating to say we could take on a little bit more of a salary if someone's looking to to you know start their youth movement and have a salary dump the only other name I was going to mention on the cornerback market and art Stapleton had pointed this out is a Kell Weatherspoon who was qub actually I I I I this is the guy that I would jump at so good on Art I technically thought of him before art told me about it but it doesn't count because now you've said it so it's over you it was in my brain before he said it so I stay claim to it so it's officially mine credit to me where credit's due I I love it I did you hurt your arm when you patted yourself on the back I gotta tell you I'm a little tender but post podcast I'll just be icing down please but a Killa weather spoon is interesting he's 29 years old so he is on the older side he's 62 200 pounds he's a big longbody guy and the Rams got the most out of him you know he was a 64 PFF grade in 2023 had a dreadful year with the Steelers uh the previous year which is why he's kind of bounc around a little bit he's kind of Hit or Miss but listen the Beggars can't be choosers the Giants obviously need some help in the secondary he's a guy that would would potentially command more than the veteran minimum and so that's just one small name to to keep an eye on Art pointed it out I've got my radar up looking at it he's a free agent he wouldn't cost you any you know wouldn't cost you draft compensation or anything else keep an eye on Witherspoon as one of one of the names to watch yes I I again I did have him on my radar the weird thing about him is just inside of his numbers is you mentioned had has had some good runs especially with the Rams last year he was targeted 106 times surrendered just 51 completions 48% uh completion percentage for opposing QBs with a 757 rating you know what was the most alarming though that jumped out to me you go back uh three years ago 2021 with Pittsburgh where in more limited action he only gave up 14 completions on 37 targets 28.6% missed Target percentage and almost 15% this past year it was one of those things where the height seems really good right because the Giants could use a little more of that size and then you were like but I feel like short tackling and now again if you can stop the completion who cares but those are some alarming numbers when you see in in terms of tackles but I I do like him and I wonder at 29 you know up and down what's the price point I think that's what really matters here with a lot of these discussions okay the other thing then for us here is what's been going on for the New York football Giants overall because they've also been suffering injuries you mentioned about does it make more sense for the team to look at the defensive front here's the here's the premise first that Ryder Anderson who had a little bit of Buzz to him last year but never quite came fully to fruition then we get the Hard Knocks reference from Shane Bowen hey maybe he could be the guy that steps up in this role all right the uncertainty around his e o jalari but then this off season injury here injury there and now he's been waved IR but there is still some chance Andy that he comes back around UND designated to return depending on how shakes out bottom line being you've lost what was perceived to be the next man in line in terms of your depth chart and in that front in the defensive front there you already talk about got rid of Phillips like we've already thinned this thing out we all may love Elijah Chapman and his desire to chase down running backs but the reality is this team lacks experience and certainly lacks some talent in terms of where they thought they would be at the start of the offseason yeah I mean listen Adam it was Ryder Anderson injury a surprise for you know not only have we not seen the the full effects of Ryder Anderson and what he could be but he's been getting a lot of first team reps throughout all of training camp and so the Giants were expecting him to potentially have a role at least a rotational role not you know I I actually thought his roster spot was not going to be in Jeopardy if he ended up making uh you know if he ended up not getting injured it's a surprise to see him go I I my hypothesis is that his injury is a little bit more than than what they're letting on may be a six eight week kind of situation they don't want to burn one of those short IR stints on a guy that is a little bit of a fringe 53 man roster type guy but Adam you know with the emergence of Elijah Chapman he kind of you know starts moving up Ryder Anderson on many of the depth charts listed like ourlads and others as of yesterday was listed as the as a starter for the Giants so this to me was coming as as a surprise it felt like it caught a lot of people off guard I mean you're you're losing bodies left and right we're still waiting to hear what what's what's going on with mikah mcfaden that's obviously going to be an important one for the Giants as well but you know the second we start losing these bodies and you're talking about Jordan Riley who was active for some of the games that didn't play Casey Rogers undra undrafted uh free agent Elijah Chapman under the free agent it gets very thin very quickly for the Giants when you lose someone like Ryder Anderson oh of course and listen you know we know we have Nunes Rocher he's going to be there next to with exter Lawrence as well you mentioned Chapman but then Casey Rogers I mean you know we have our 53 man kind of projection we're going to get into on tomorrow's episode so be sure to check it out you mentioned Jordan Riley he's supposed to be kind of like oh okay we we know that we can count on him for X but whether it's being availability or trusting that the value is going to be there on those reps that's another interesting point there as well when it comes to how this depth chart is Shake shook out excuse me and then a guy like DJ Davidson who we we liked the lowlevel buzz he had last year but he has not had a great camp or great preseason showing so there seems to be a lot of uncertainty there and that's where I wonder about as these Cuts start to come through will we see the Giants and Joe Shane start to have that conversation about who are some players that we like um you had as well you can paraphrase it but the quote from Joe Shane about and we'll we we'll look at this more tomorrow but in terms of I I'll do the paraphrasing hey I actually leave some things about when I talk to my coaches I tend to leave a handful of more spots open says kind of 53 you know 51 maybe 5050 maybe maybe a few more and I think in this iteration of this team that's notable because when these Cuts start happening we may be widening six to eight kind of players that potentially could be coming in here yeah essentially Joe sham was asked on the fan essentially like how how are things Roster cuts working how do you get down on on cuts and what he said is he asked the coaches to pick their top 22 players on offense and 22 players on defense and obviously there's some guys that are specific to special teams like a GNA like a Casey crder like a Jamie Gillan and and others maybe even pum return kick returners Etc and so when they asked him I'm like all right how many roster spots are up for grabs it's kind of funny because he said he feels confident in 51 and like as it left his mouth he kind of like pulled it back he's like well maybe a little less than that because I don't think he want I think he wants to make sure that players are still motivated to try to compete and make these roster spots I think he probably feels like there's only a handful like you know two or three Russ spots still available and up for grabs right now and you know what Adam it's like at that point you know you've seen them all training camp you've seen a few preseason games there's going to be one more preseason game with third string players playing in it if you don't have a really good sense of at least like 50 guys on your 53 man roster then like what have you been doing the last month and a half anyway so like you have to kind of have a number where you're like I'm confident and then there's only like a handful of guys that are battling it out right well it's funny too so on that note cuz then there's actually a reason why um a statement that I want to make that it should alleviate any fan concern about this defensive side in the depth but on that note it's so interesting to me about you must feel and it's not knocking any of these players but you have to have a pretty low opinion about a lot of the players on the back end of your roster if after an entire summer and training camp and preseason games you are more eager to go out and grab the discards from other Raw now some of them are established so you have a track record you've seen them some have connections to an offensive or defense coordinator we know that but just the idea that you'd be willing to jettison a handful of players you've been working with and developing you have to probably look at their tipe and go boy this is so bad that I will take a chance on a guy that I may know but I have not looked at really this entire summer and bring him in off the street to see if he can be ready to go week one September right like that that's such a it's just a fascinating way that the NFL Works where like the reality of talent hierarchy it exists in a certain way and to a certain extent the off seon for you know 15ish players on the roster it really is just about trying to get reps we saw two rookies get brought in after Ryder Anderson went down it's just about like bringing in bodies and seeing if somebody catch your eye and maybe fits a role that you have that another team just doesn't have the need for well but but but also think about it this way so we know that Deontay Banks is going to be here we're hoping that someone's going to be the cornerback number number two no one has really asserted themselves on the other outside position and it's like we've seen what our best capable guys are in terms of Nick McLoud and Cordell flat and maybe some others yeah and it's like some of the guys behind them just haven't run with the opportunity that's been presented with them do you go to someone that started eight games for a playoff team that now is kind of the odd man out like there there's just that this idea of like we're we're talking about a a practice squad guy maybe making the back end of the roster or another guy on a team that has more depth that actually participated you're like well that guy seems to have a little bit of a higher priority for us in the pecking order but Adam as he mentioned he's already got 51 guys so we're really talking about like maybe one or two areas where they would explore someone that is from a completely different roster that they haven't seen before so that numbers feels small to me and it should be small like you shouldn't be like we only have 45 guys we're willing to grab nine guys that are going to get released from other teams then you'd feel like your depth is even in in a bigger world of hurt oh yeah well so I mean we'll get into that more tomorrow but I I I I think that there is more I think that there is more I think that Joe Shane was alluding to the idea that like maybe it is a few more spots than you realize and by the way practice squad matters here too because there's a number of guys on this roster that you like and they flashed a little bit but the Giants just want to be able to develop them so that matters here too one of the key reasons before I bring up just there was an interesting from Ryan Dunley be talking about Joe Shane's negotiations on the Daniel Jones contract which I you know was always fun to reflect back on my one reason to now secondary and cornerback is a separate thing but in terms of defensive front Dexter Lawrence is gonna be on the field all the time Kavon Tibido is going to be on the field all of the time Brian Burns Bob o car like those four guys are going to be on the field significantly in terms of rep share and I think when we talk about the Shane bone hey we go get you Brian burn that's what you get and you don't get upset and you should be elated by that I think that no matter how this shakes out whether it's a veteran X Y or Z I think ultimately that's what the Giants are banking on defensively that our starters that are going to do the bulk of the work for us it's about them if they're healthy and they succeed hey we're going to live with the results and mix and match and maybe a name gets brought into the second there I think that's very much on the table but it's going to be hard to way outside of saying hey did you like a veteran that you feel like could come and give you at least consistent reps over a player with this upside but maybe has a downto down kind of pendulum that you just don't want to see swing if you need to take one of those starters off the field yeah I mean listen there's not Daniel Jones contract a a savior for the Giants depth that's getting released from another team that's that's going out the window is there a guy that can make the back end of the roster that in a pinch can play a couple snaps sure but if Kon Tibido and Brian Burns go down or Dex Lawrence goes down the Giants don't have a player that you get 90 cents on the dollar behind one of those types of players the Giants will be in a world to hurt defensively if any of their big stars go down they just don't have the depth that some of these other teams do obviously you're trying to figure out how to compliment that depth and that's really what we're going to be looking at in the last week week and a half before they name the 53 let's close out here in a moment on a comment and a quote from Joe Shane is reported by Ryan Dunley regarding Daniel Jones and the contract and I think unfortunately some context that Giants fans just aren't going to embrace with a warm glow coming up here to close out in just one moment all right Andy so there was um over on X and this is coming in we're recording on Tuesday Morning this was from Ryan dun Ley he was reporting about Joe Shane saying um that part of the Daniel Jones uh agents selling point to him to Daniel Jones on the 4-year 160 contract extension uh was that there are a bunch of other QBs were coming up soon for extensions and their number wasn't going to be top of the market as it seemed quote there's not really a middle class of QBs right now trust me that was the sell of the agent at the time they do their homework too all these guys are coming up context obviously was a top 10 paid QB 40 million a year when he signed he is now the 14 to 17 range what about that in terms of the agents selling Joe Shane I'm being like let me tell you why you're going to want to pay this guy because you're going to end up right in The Sweet Spot when all these other QBs come along obviously results matter and the injuries and the performance and everything else but there's something weird about that of being like yeah well obviously you're GNA want to pay him because it's all G to settle out in the end and that that feels almost like getting sold a lemon at the dealership because while yeah middle tier great but if you don't have an elite quarterback you don't have any quarterback that's the way the NFL is right now and obviously when we reflect back like quotes like these make me feel like Joe Shane and John may not putting on him but the collectively the franchise wanted this to work out and were willing to be convinced that this was going to make a lot of sense so I think of it in two buckets obviously the quote you're kind of just like oh it doesn't it doesn't sound great like oh the agent convinced us to do this deal you're like that doesn't sound yeah okay just real quick like it's like oh the agent convinced you was a good deal like oh my God he he told you that there was this type oh okay so the guy that gets paid on how much Daniel Jones gets paid is the one tell like great honestly Joe it's not about my percentages it's not about the percentages I make on the contract but I just think 160 makes a lot of sense to me so so so the problem there there's two it's twofold one is the process in The problem with Jones contract which the Giants followed and the logic in which the Giants followed makes sense if Daniel Jones played margin like better than what he did last year where it's an unmitigated disaster all of the logic of the process makes sense the problem was the evaluation of the contract in terms of what Daniel Jones can provide but like if you're saying like 40 million for a franchise quarterback is not that much because the going rate is going to go up that part was correct it was in fact right look at all these players that are getting 50 52 55 million so like the way I see it is like the process that they followed to say it's only going to go up if we want Daniel Jones here we need to do this now if we franchise him and he has and he replicates the same deal like the same season that he just had it's going to cost us 12 to 134 million more because the market continues to go up so the Giants took the bet at that moment that he was going to continue to progress instead of regress like we just saw he played horrible had a terrible knee injury and before the knee injury went he played he wasn't good anyways so it makes it look so bad so I don't know if you feel the same way but like the process that they went through made sense but then the evaluation ultimately LED them to give Daniel Jones the contract and it hasn't it hasn't come to fruition yet yeah of course yeah yeah yeah good good process bad result right and it's just you know you mentioned the numbers there and obviously when you talk about at the top of it right now aav with Joe burrow 55 along with love along with Trevor Lawrence now like I think Trevor Lawrence is another is a good example out there as people have done the comp between Daniel Jones and him and their stats to this point you go ah will you ever have bu remorse guess what two years from now maybe we'll hear from Trevor Lawrence's agent he was like Hey I told the Jaguars listen guys when you take a look at the market and people that are coming up this deal makes sense like I think that there's most of these guys when you look at those numbers it adds up like it's like even Tua okay the sample size of success is big enough even if you you know prefer don't prefer Jared GF like Justin Herbert Lamar Jackson you know Jaylen Herz another good example of maybe hey did you put too much all in off of a a relatively small sample size of sess sure the problem is that like Daniel Jones sits there just behind Prescott and just behind Matthew Stafford as like the $40 million club right behind him is Aaron Rogers right behind him is Derek Carr not too far back as Baker Mayfield and then it's just everybody else I mean Gino Smith good deal but he's looking for more money now as well it's like everything else after that by the way is flyer guys like Sam darnold or all the rookie contracts it's Caleb Williams making almost 10 Mill and Bryce young and Jaden Daniels and Drake May it's like it's all of those dudes now and that's again a reminder of where it lives and I think to the agents point and maybe to the the landscape of the NFL at the end of the day if you are an NFL franchise you're either paying somebody a ton of money or you're paying a rookie scale like that's what it is right and like there's a very few instances of in between and right now the only not the only one but the one that jumps out is the Raiders just named Garner muu their starting quarterback not because he was the you know preferred option necessarily it's where they're at and they're paying him though 25 million like uh sorry 12 12 and a half million 25 million total 12 and a half million that's like the steal in terms of starting quarterback and not having to do significant amount of money on him and I think when we look back on it it's is Daniel Jones probably was he worth more than 12 and a half million a year at the time of course he was at the time but I'd rather it be closer to 12.5 than to 40 or to 50 and that's the difference here you you know what's funny and and we'll we'll wrap this at Jordan Love the end of the day with the name that you mentioned is is Jordan love being one of the highest paid quarterbacks in the league and and look they are projecting that Jordan love will build upon what he has shown but Adam he had one year as a starter he only started one other game in his career and that was his rookie season he completed 64% of his passes and he was nine and eight but he won a big playoff game humiliated the Dallas Cowboys that sounds very familiar to me where it's like you have one really good year you finish above 500 you make the playoffs you go on the road you have a huge playoff win and guess what the team backs up the Brinks truck and so none of us are criticizing the Green Bay Packers right now because you're like wow the process makes sense if you think you have the guy the price is only going to go up the question is going to be are we going to see Jordan love take that next step or is he G to regress because all of a sudden if he regresses similar to what happened to Daniel Jones everyone's going to look at the Green Bay Packers and say how could you pay this guy and so that's the the interesting thing is the process that the Packers have gone through was almost identical to what the Giants have gone through with with Daniel Jones but you know we'll see what the results end up being if the Packers are going to take that next step and guess what the the Packers are known to get guys and have them sit and turn out to be great right like so track record matters in it you look at the Packers and Jordan love you go it's going to work out why because because it works out for them because that's what cuz that's what the Packers do they only have three QBs over the last 40 Years of their franchise because it always generally works out for them so yeah that's a good watch certainly there as well and by the way man Jordan love he threw 83 passes over his first two years before he stepped into 2023 and obviously went off for the 32 touchdown 11 interception season that he did so I mean listen I love him and by the way remember if if everyone if anyone recalls I was the one that said Jordan love is the man and then as he waffled early I waffled as well but he came back around for me so ad Adam look listen you got all these you got all these spicy takes you you thought about Witherspoon in your mind so you're gonna you're G to put plant your flag on that one you may have said Jordan love was good and then you're you're doing the skip bis where you're giving your backhanded compliment yourself you're like I was I I knew it the whole time I was right initially like I should have I should have trusted my evaluation because I'm right so often and and so like listen don't worry don't beat yourself up you were right at the beginning don't don't worry about it a big part of it is sometimes when you're right so often you almost doubt the idea of like oh oh I I can't be this good can I be perfect can I be perfect in all my picks like is this the one I should move off of nope you know what credit to me I was right the first time right exactly you know nine times out of 10 when I flip the coin it turns up Adam now the bottom line is tomorrow we're going to do our 53 man roster projection we're going to include the 16 uh practice squad positions as well so we're going to break down where at this moment the roster currently stands and I think we're going to leave ourselves the wiggle room to say I'm not going to give out every single roster spot because we believe there's going to be some new bodies in here but I think it's informative and I'll be curious where Andy and I agree probably in a lot of spots but I guarantee you there's going to be no less Andy than five positions on this roster of significance that you and I will disagree on tomorrow so that's going to be coming up you get us on YouTube at one giant podcast on your podcast feeds we're re-engaging onto all of our platforms so hopefully you're finding us Spotify still in the works get us on Apple get us on Amazon get us on iHeart radio get us on pocketcast we're out there on all those they'll be in the show notes you can find us there links to our uh our platform page as well and then we come back in tomorrow with roster breakdown starting to look ahead to the final preseason game and Joint practice with those Stadium friends the New York Jets until then though until the next time until the best times as Andrew MTZ would want need and nay demand the people know as always let's go big blue [Applause] [Music]