PLENTY IS LEFT TO DO
Combine is canceled but NFL calendar still jammed
Pour one out for Indianapolis and the 2021 NFL Combine. Football’s annual Underwear Olympics, originally scheduled for this week, was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, leaving Indy’s bars short on offseason rumors and gossip.
The combine went off without a hitch last year, believe it or not, just before the severity of the COVID-19 virus became public knowledge.
Since, the NFL has completed an offseason and a 2020 regular season, and now it enters a full year of unknowns and shifting goal posts armed with a better idea of how to adjust.
Here is a look, then, at the layout of the 2021 NFL offseason, and an explanation of what’s certain and what remains up in the air, with a Giants slant:
[subhead]Feb. 23-March 9: Franchise/Transition
Tag Designation Period[/subhead]
Tuesday opened the window for teams to franchise or transition tag one player on their roster. The deadline to do so is March 9 at 4 p.m. New York time. Teams use the tag and its one-year, fully guaranteed contract to prevent their big ticket free agents from hitting the open market.
The Giants used the non-exclusive franchise tag on Leonard Williams last year. He carried a team-high $16.126 million cap hit in 2020. They could tag him again in 2021 at $19.35 million, or 120 percent of last season’s salary. But his open market price is expected to be $20 million per year at least. Since the Giants and Willams both have interest in an extension, it would make more sense to negotiate a long-term contract that reduces his 2021 cap hit.
An important note: Once a team tags a player, it commits that cap space to him and cannot use it elsewhere unless it removes the tag. Once the player signs the tag tender, he is locked into that contract for 2021 unless he is traded or signs an extension by a mid-July deadline.
The tag also will impact whom the Giants can pursue. Wide receivers such as the Bears’ Allen Robinson and the Lions’ Kenny Golladay, for example, could be tagged and kept off the unrestricted market and only available via trade.
March 5-April 9: College Pro Days
With no NFL Combine, college pro days will be NFL teams’ only opportunities to see draft prospects work out on the field in person outside of January’s Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala. The league said in a memo that it’s working with college programs “to encourage consistency in testing and drills across pro days and ensure that all clubs have access to video from those workouts, irrespective of whether the club is represented at a particular workout.” From school to school, there will be varying limits on the amount of officials each team can send, where they can sit or stand based on facilities, and whether they can put prospects through workouts themselves -- not to mention questions about the uniform accuracy of measurements.
But starting March 5 at Kansas and continuing through April 9 at Houston and UAB, scouts and club officials will scatter around the country to get their one close glimpse at key prospects. The stretch of March 23-31 is an interesting one for the Giants’ purposes based on staff connections and top prospects present: Alabama (March 23), Mississippi State (March 24), Penn State (March 25), Virginia Tech (March 26), Miami (March 29), Florida and Notre Dame (March 31).
March 15: Unofficial salary cap (& more) deadline
Technically, the NFL and players’ union need to set a final 2021 salary cap number by March 17 at 4 p.m., the start of the new league year. But the legal free agent tampering period begins two days prior, so teams realistically need to be armed with defined parameters by that date. This all ties in to the NFL’s hopes to complete its new television rights deals by the start of the league year, as well. Those contracts and revenues could impact a decision on a final cap number, which will be no lower than $180 million. More than the cap needs to be worked out, though. The NFL and union have to agree on the rules governing the 2021 offseason and regular season, as well. One that prominently impacts rosters is whether players again will have the option to “opt out” of the season. Well-placed league sources believe the rules will be similar, but the presence and availability of a vaccine could impact that. Giants tackle Nate Solder was a “high-risk” opt out in 2020 as a cancer survivor with a son who also is battling cancer. The COVID-19 virus is still here. Players and teams need to know their options.
March 17, 4 p.m.: Start of 2021 NFL league year
The Giants have two players whose fifthyear option salaries will become guaranteed for 2021 at 4 p.m. on March 17: tight end Evan Engram ($6 million) and safety Jabrill Peppers ($6.7 million), per overthecap.com. That’s an important marker for the Giants to decide on how they’ll proceed with those players, whether it’s making a trade (in Engram’s case), picking up the option (in both players’ cases) or extending the player (in Peppers’ case). It’s not necessarily a deadline to take action, but it’s a healthy impetus before those salaries become guaranteed. Agreements on trades and signings around the league can become official at this time.
March 20: Money for more Giants
Wide receiver Sterling Shepard has a $6.975 million salary in 2021, and $4.025 million of it becomes guaranteed on this date. Wideout/special teams ace Cody Core also has a $500,000 roster bonus due, per overthecap. The Giants spent most of 2020 trying to find a gunner to replace Core, who missed the season with an Achilles tear. These are two valuable players.
Late March: NFL owners’ meetings
The owners again will go virtual for their annual spring owners’ meetings. The matter at the forefront of everyone’s minds is the expected expansion to a 17-game regular season. If the NFL does expand the season, it’s expected to bump its 16-game regular season to 17, and reduce its four game preseason slate to three games. This matter and others have been discussed and will be discussed with the players’ union prior to March 17, as well. It’s possible this late March meeting will simply formalize what has already been agreed upon. The continued lack of diversity in the NFL’s head coaching ranks will also be among a range of topics addressed during these virtual calls.
Early April: Select NFL Draft prospect medical evaluation
The NFL Combine’s origin and primary value to teams is its uniform medical evaluations with centralized, trusted, state of the art facilities and professionals in Indy. With the combine cancelled, the league said in
January that it was working on a plan to “obtain comprehensive medical information on each of the invited prospects.” The NFL says that will likely include “a combination of virtual interviews by club medical staffs and testing done at labs and medical facilities near the invited prospect’s residence.” But for some prospects who present injury risks or require further evaluation, the NFL said “an in-person examination will take place at one or more designated locations, likely in early April.” Each team will be permitted to send one physician and one athletic trainer to conduct those in-person exams, which will likely be scheduled over a two or three day period.
April 5: Start of offseason workouts for new head coaches
League sources expect the 2021 NFL offseason to look a lot like the 2020 offseason, with more virtual work and less on the field. Commissioner Roger Goodell admitted as much was likely during his Super Bowl press conference. Sources also say the players’ union plans to push for this type of schedule as permanent to alleviate the toll on players’ bodies, with proof from 2020 that the league can complete a regular season successfully while dramatically reducing on-field work. Coaches obviously are not in favor of that. The bottom line, though, is that virtual is here to stay, beginning with the start of OTAs in April. Rookie head
coaches, therefore, gain less of an advantage by bringing their players back early if they’re not on the field much. Still, they’ll have a two-week head start to install their new systems with the team. So this is the start date for Chargers’ Brandon Staley, the Eagles’ Nick Siranni, the Falcons’ Arthur Smith, the Jaguars’ Urban Meyer, the Jets’ Robert Saleh, the Lions’ Dan Campbell and the Texans’ David Culley.
April 19: Start of offseason workouts for rest of NFL
This is the Giants’ first day back as a team. Then April 23 is the last day of the restricted free agent signing period, and April 28 is the last day for NFL teams to match offer sheets for RFAs. The Giants only have two unsigned RFAs: WR C.J. Board and LB Devante Downs. Neither was a factor down the stretch.
April 29 to May 1: 2021 NFL Draft
The Giants have six picks in the draft: one in each of the first four rounds, including No. 11 overall, and two in the sixth (their own at 172 and Arizona’s at 177 from the Markus Golden trade). The Jets own their fifth-rounder from the Williams trade, and the Broncos own their seventh from the Isaac Yiadom deal.
May through August: Virtual the norm, but fans on the horizon
The offseason is expected to continue in a largely virtual format after the draft. Training camp would open in late July, and after last season’s preseason was cancelled outright, the NFL is looking at a possible three-game preseason this August. All of this is still being negotiated and determined, along with vaccine availability and administration and the NFL’s testing cadence.
What we do know, though, is that when football returns to MetLife Stadium, some fans will, too. Governor Phil Murphy announced this week that the stadium can welcome fans up to 15 percent capacity for all events beginning on March 1, and the hope is that number will be greater by the time August rolls around.
Sept. 2021: Regular season opener
Tom Brady and the reigning champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers will host the NFL’s 2021 regular season opener. The Giants are one of eight possible opponents, along with the Saints, Falcons, Bills, Panthers, Cowboys, Dolphins and Bears. The Saints and Cowboys probably would be bigger draws (Dak Prescott’s first game back against Brady and the champs). But Joe Judge and Daniel Jones no doubt would love another crack at Brady’s Bucs under the bright lights.