OH, YES THEY KEN!
Giants give WR Golladay huge deal & fans new hope
Happy Golladays, Giants fans. There is a new No. 1 wide receiver in New York. And the Giants are paying him like it.
Kenny Golladay and the Giants reached agreement Saturday afternoon on a blockbuster four-year, $72 million contract, worth up to $76 million, that includes $40 million guaranteed, a league source told the Daily News.
Golladay, 27, a former Detroit Lions standout, signed on Day 3 of his highly-publicized visit to New York and New Jersey to convince Dave Gettleman and Joe Judge, and to undergo a medical[b] [/b]evaluation with the Giants’ team doctors.
Quarterback Daniel Jones called Golladay directly during the process to recruit him, helping to get the deal across the finish line.
“He reached out,” Golladay said on a Zoom call. “He just said how good of a player he thought I was. I pretty much said the same thing about him. And he also just said you know, we’re trying to do something great here. And that’s what I’m all about.”
The 6-4, 214-pound Golladay fills a glaring vacancy at the top of the Giants’ receiver depth chart created by Odell Beckham Jr.’s trade to Cleveland in March 2019. Jones now has a big-bodied outside threat.
Improving the NFL’s No. 31 scoring offense was the Giants’ priority this offseason to give Jones an optimal opportunity to turn the corner and succeed in his pivotal third season at quarterback.
“I’m very excited to have Kenny. He’s been a big time playmaker in this league,” Jones said. When we spoke, he was interested in the culture we have in the building and the mindset of the team. I think he had heard it from coaches but wanted to hear how we saw it as players and how much we believed in it. I think finding the right fit in that sense was important to him. I can’t wait to get out on the field and get to work with him.”
With this long-term contract, Golladay and the Giants are banking on building a foundation for something special long into the future.
“I kind of want to grow with him,” Golladay said of Jones. “I’m still growing as a player.”
Golladay’s $18 million annual average ties him at No. 6 among all NFL wideouts with Beckham and the Chiefs’ Tyreek Hill.
He becomes the alpha of a receiving corps that includes Sterling Shepard, Darius Slayton, Evan Engram, and free agent signings John Ross and Kyle Rudolph.
That’s on top of Saquon Barkley’s anticipated return to the backfield from last season’s torn right ACL. And the Giants could draft more offensive weapons in late April, using their No. 11 overall pick or a middle-round selection on a playmaker.
Golladay played only five games for the Lions last season due to a hip injury. But he had backto-back 1,000 yard seasons in 2018-19. And in 2019, he made 65 catches for a career-high 1,190 receiving yards and a league-leading 11 receiving TDs, also a career high.
And next season, he said both he and Jones are “excited” about their potential.
“I’m gonna go out there and do all I can to help this offense go,” Golladay said.
The Giants had some questions about Golladay off the field, which is why a visit was required.
The Lions declined to franchise tag Golladay this spring and let him walk out the door for nothing other than a possible compensatory draft pick.
Gettleman and Judge wanted to meet Golladay for themselves and ensure that he would buy into the Giants’ program. Golladay’s time in Detroit had ended on a sour note with since-fired GM Bob Quinn and coach Matt Patricia — two former Judge Patriots colleagues.
Kyle O’Brien, the Giants’ new senior personnel exec, also was Quinn’s right-hand man in Detroit when the Lions drafted Golladay in the third round of the 2017 NFL Draft out of Northern Illinois.
But Golladay insisted he is “all the way in” and that he believes in Judge’s “vision.” He convinced the Giants he would be an asset and landed a contract that hopefully will vault Jones and the Giants offense over the top.
“I think it’s really just they wanted to lay eyes on me, taking a different approach about this whole process, and it kind of worked out for both sides,” Golladay said. “I was able to come in and see what they’re all about. I was able to see how the facility was. They had a chance to pick my brain. And I think it worked out pretty smooth.”
The Giants reportedly gave Golladay a choice between a one-year contract and a longer-term deal, per Sports Illustrated, and Golladay made the long-term commitment.
It was touch and go until the end whether Golladay would sign in New York, though, as Golladay and his agent tried — and eventually succeeded — to drive up the price on a depressed market.
Golladay reportedly was seeking $18.5 million per year, according to ProFootballTalk, but his offers when he landed in New Jersey on Thursday night were more in the range of a $10-11 million deal on the table from the Chicago Bears, per the Chicago Tribune.
There were leaks before Golladay even arrived in New York that he had an offer on the table already from the Bengals (which was true) and that he’d visited Bears GM Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy on Wednesday night.
There was a report on Friday that the Baltimore Ravens were in the mix, but that value-mindful franchise wasn’t a true threat to drive the price up.
Sure enough, the Ravens had been pursuing JuJu Smith-Schuster on a $9 million offer with $4 million more in incentives that failed to lure him away from the Pittsburgh Steelers.
In the end, though, it all worked out in the Giants’ favor, which is all that matters.
Kenny Golladay is a Giant. The Giants have their No. 1, or as Golladay called himself, “just a playmaker, ya know?”
“Whenever they need me, I’m gonna be there to pretty much make a play,” he said.