Giants edge rusher Markus Golden will sign his tender and report to the team, according to Art Stapleton of The Record (on Twitter). When he arrives, Golden will go through the first round of COVID-19 protocols and get to work once he’s given the green light.
Golden registered 10 sacks in a bounce-back 2019 season, but the game tape and advanced metrics told a slightly different story. With only 26 pressures, many evaluators felt that his sack totals were something of a fluke. Golden aimed for a lucrative multiyear deal, but the Giants instead tethered him with a rarely used UFA tender. When Golden wasn’t able to scare up another offer, he chose to take his time. Now, he’ll return to the G-Men and earn $4.125MM in 2020.
Last year, the Giants finished near the bottom in pass-defense DVOA. In a perfect world, they probably would have liked to upgrade from Golden, but they did not engage heavily with this year’s top edge rushers. Instead of adding one of the still-available options – a list that includes Jadeveon Clowney, Everson Griffen, and Jabaal Sheard – the Giants seem ready to enter Week 1 with Golden, longtime Packers backup Kyler Fackrell, and a young group of DEs to bring the blitz.
Because Golden’s 10th and final sack last season triggered a $1MM incentive, he made more money in 2019 than his 2020 tender will pay. This sets up a strange “prove it again” season for the former Cardinals second-round pick. But with the Giants curiously doing little to augment their edge-rushing situation this year, Golden is again in line to be the team’s top pass rusher. This will be Golden’s age-29 campaign.
D-line will suck again. Strahan, Osi, Tuck, JPP where are you???
Don’t forget about Linval Joseph and Barry Cofield
Yep, and that was because Reese hardly resigned his own guys after the rookie deals. Always let them walk.
Unlike the article last week said, this was when he had no other choice if he wanted to play this season but to sign with the Giants, not last week. The rule on that rarely used UFA tender is that a player could sign with any team until 7/22/20 or the start of training camp, whichever was later. After looking at that rule, I’m surprised more teams don’t use it. It requires the team to pay 10% more than the player’s base salary for his last year. Incentives from last year don’t count. If a player can get a better deal elsewhere, good for him. I hate the Pats, but you’d think they’d use it on Cam for next year. If Cam is the Cam of old, he’ll get a good deal somewhere else but it doesn’t really trap a player unless there’s no deal anywhere else before training camp.