HEADLINES

Giants To Release Golden Tate

March 3rd, 2021 at 5:58pm CST by Sam Robinson

The Giants will release Golden Tate, according to ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter (on Twitter). Expected to be a cap casualty for a bit now, Tate will become a free agent for the third time.

Tate’s Giants tenure started poorly, with the veteran wide receiver being suspended four games for a positive PED test. He posted just 388 receiving yards in his second Giants season in 2020. Additionally, Big Blue will cut linebacker David Mayo, per Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (on Twitter). Together, these moves will create nearly $9MM in cap space for the Giants. Both contracts had two years remaining.

Tate and New York have clearly been headed for divorce ever since the team made him an inactive back in Week 9 for issues with his effort and performance. In a signing that proved to be an unmitigated disaster in hindsight, Giants GM Dave Gettleman gave Tate a four-year, $37.5MM deal with $23MM fully guaranteed during 2019 free agency.

In his first season with the team, he had 49 catches for 676 yards and six touchdowns in 11 games. Tate became a Super Bowl champion with the Seahawks, and made the Pro Bowl with the Lions in 2014. From 2014-17 he had at least 1,000 yards in three of four seasons, but at 32 is now on the tail-end of his career. He should be able to catch on with somebody, but won’t get much if any guaranteed money.

The Giants gave Mayo a three-year extension almost exactly one year ago, but he didn’t make it very far into that new deal. He had a breakout 2019 season where he started 13 games and graded out well, but he fell out of favor with the new coaching staff led by Joe Judge, and only started two games this past season. The 2015 fifth-round pick of the Panthers will now hit free agency at the age of 27.

View Comments (31)