For Big Blue, not-so-Golden era ends with Tate’s release
Jets’ GM admits Sam deal could be made, says ‘I’ll answer’ calls for QB
The Giants continued their rebuild with some cost cutting Wednesday night, releasing veteran wide receiver Golden Tate and linebacker David Mayo, according to sources.
The moves bail early on two ill-conceived contracts and clear approximately $8.4 million in cap space in 2021.
The NFL’s salary cap is expected to drop from $198.2 million last season to approximately $181-183 million in 2021. The Giants project only slightly above the new cap, which made these sort of player releases no-brainers.
Tate, 32, is gone two years into a four-year,
$37.5 million contract that included $23 million fully guaranteed at signing in
2019. GM Dave
Gettleman traded
Odell Beckham
Jr. and signed
Tate in his place.
It would be an understatement to say it didn’t work out.
Tate served a four-game PED suspension to open his first
Giants season.
Then last fall he got benched for a game at Washington and demoted to Joe Judge’s scout team in practice after showing up his teammates and demanding more targets in a loss to Tampa Bay.
He caught 84 passes for 1.064 yards and eight touchdowns in 23 games as a Giant over two years, sitting out the final two games of last season with a calf injury.
Cutting him clears $6.1 million off the Giants’ 2021 cap. Tate’s contract will toll $4.7 million in dead money in 2021 and $2.3 million in 2022, per overthecap. com.
The Giants also cut Mayo one year into a three-year, $8.4 million contract with $3.5 million guaranteed that he inked in a spring 2019 re-signing. He missed the first five games of last season on injured reserve with a torn meniscus.
Waiving Mayo clears $2.3 million off the 2021 cap and removes a player whose lack of speed and impact do not fit the team the Giants now are trying to build.
Tate’s release means the Giants’ primary 2019 freeagent signings are all gone: Tate, safety Antoine Bethea and offensive tackle Mike Remmers.
The Beckham trade and Tate signing are the reason the Giants are in desperate need of a No. 1 receiver.
The Giants’ inside linebacker depth chart, meanwhile, is paper thin. They have Blake Martinez, Tae Crowder and TJ Brunson on their active roster. Devante Downs is a free agent and isn’t expected back.
NFL free agency officially opens on March 17.
Jets GM Joe Douglas and head coach Robert Saleh haven’t quite tipped their hand for their plans at quarterback yet, but those plans are becoming increasingly clear.
Sam Darnold is on the block.
Trading for Deshaun Watson is unlikely. Perhaps the clearest statement during Wednesday’s virtual press conference with the two top Jets came from Douglas when he was asked a leading question about trading the Jets’ boatload of picks for a player. “Ultimately, for us to get where the great teams are, the most consistent teams are, you do that through the draft,” Douglas said. “It’s the most team-friendly market in sports. For us to be really that team that’s consistently competing for Super Bowls, we have to hit on our draft picks.”
Douglas didn’t mention Watson, but he’s the one player that the Jets could possibly grab in a trade, and what they have to give up in return are those precious draft picks.
Douglas and Saleh continued their effusive praise of Darnold, but that praise has always been paired with a refusal to commit to him as the team’s quarterback.
“He’s an extremely talented player, very smart, very tough. We have no doubt that Sam is going to achieve his outstanding potential,” Douglas said. The clear omission: where Darnold will achieve that potential. The GM basically confirmed a month-old ESPN report that the Jets are in trade discussions with other teams about Darnold. “I will answer the call if it’s made” from another team, he said. “Sam’s, we think, a dynamic player in this league with unbelievable talent who really has a chance to hit his outstanding potential. But if calls are made, I will answer ‘em.”
This all makes one option more likely: Drafting a QB in the first round.
Saleh and Douglas were speaking to media in lieu of making a normal appearance at the NFL Combine, which was canceled this year because of the pandemic. As Douglas pointed out, last year there was a combine but no pro days, and the opposite is the case this year.
“It’s just good to stand next to a quarterback, to see the spin off his hand, to have the ball jump off his hand, to feel his presence. Those are all important things,” Douglas said. “There’s not gonna be as much private time with the player, there’s not gonna be dinners... there’s not gonna be classroom time.”
That means other than watching the draft class of quarterbacks throw, Douglas and Saleh will have to do the more qualitative evaluations over Zoom. With Trevor Lawrence a lock to go No. 1 overall to Jacksonville, they’ll likely be choosing between Zach Wilson of BYU, Justin Fields of Ohio State and Trey Lance of North Dakota State.
THINGS MAYE GET UGLY
Contract drama with the safety who is also the best player on a bad team? Is it 2020 again? Safety Marcus Maye, the team’s clear MVP last season, is a free agent, although the Jets could franchise tag him. On Wednesday night, Maye’s agent, Erik Burkhardt, tweeted that the Jets “refuse to take care of their best player, Captain, & team-voted MVP in his prime who had several All-Pro votes...and who played out his entire rookie deal and even changed positions on his contract year (after they got rid of last yrs All-Pro safety).”
“Our plan hasn’t changed — we’re in the process of working to have Marcus be here long term,” Douglas said Wednesday. When asked about Burkhardt’s tweet specifically, the GM shrugged it off. “I was made aware of some of those comments. Look, I have a lot of respect for Erik. I think he’s a great person, I’ve had a lot of great conversations with him and you guys know how I feel about Marcus. This is part of the business, this is part of negotiating. I don’t see this affecting our ability to get something done with Marcus that’s beneficial for both him and the team.”
Maye’s situation is slightly different than that of Jamal Adams, the All-Pro safety the team got rid of, as Burkhardt referenced. Adams was agitating for a well-earned raise on his rookie contract, and the Jets found a trade partner willing to enormously overpay for him. Maye is an unrestricted free agent, although in the NFL “unrestricted” means the player can still be franchise-tagged. For Maye, that would represent a huge bump for one year. He just finished a four-year, $6.5 million deal. Over The Cap projects that the 2021 franchise tag for safeties to come in around $11 million.