Loading ...With Antrel Rolle making the New York Giants the first stop on his “pay me my money” tour, no one should be surprised that multiple outlets are reporting that the Giants are now front-runners to sign the top free agent safety on the market.
After all, the Giants generally only bring in players whom they plan to offer a contract, and they always aim to have that player signed before he has a chance to visit another NFL team.
Profootballtalk.com has reported that it’s down to three teams: Big Blue, Miami and Rolle’s old team, the Cardinals. NFL Network has reported that a deal with NYG is “95% done.”
UPDATE 9:45 p.m: Ralph Vacchiano from the NY Daily News is starting to get bad vibes about the lack of an announcement. He confirms that the Giants have reached out to Darren Sharper’s reps, and says that the longer this goes, the worse it feels.
“I don’t know if Rolle is still in the NJ area tonight, but I can tell you there is a lot of league buzz about the Cardinals making a last minute run at him, especially after losing out on LB Karlos Dansby”
The Giants and Dolphins had both been rumored as possible landing spaces for Karlos Dansby and Rolle. It would seem that both teams have made their priorities clear, now that Rolle’s in the Meadowlands and Dansby has made the Miami Dolphins his first visit (now signed).
With Miami apparently out of the running for Rolle, and taking us out of the running for Dansby, it’s time to look ahead at what the signing of Rolle would mean to the Giants’ roster and offseason plans.
(Remember, however, that until the deal is done, it ain’t a done deal. I wouldn’t rule out Rolle heading back to Arizona where he’s comfortable, particularly if the Giants offer doesn’t blow Arizona’s reported six-year, $38MM-ish offer out of the water. Over at the Blue Screen Ralph Vacchiano posits that “Rolle still pondering options”).
Rolle’s addition would immediately bolster a unit that fell apart last year when Kenny Phillips went on IR. Although Rolle’s presence is paramount if Phillips’ injury prevents him from returning to field or form, a healthy tandem of Kenny Phillips and Antrel Rolle gives the Giants arguably the best starting safety duo in the NFL.
Assuming Phillips returns (and if you ask him, he’ll tell you he’s ready to run tomorrow), Michael Johnson slides down the depth chart and becomes the 3rd safety. Most fans will expect C.C. Brown gets his walking papers as soon as the ink is dry on Rolle’s contract.
Aaron Rouse would seem to have a tenuous grip on the last spot on the depth chart, although he will have to hold off practice-squadders Vince Anderson and Shareff Rashad, not to mention fellow mid-season waiver claim D.J. Johnson.
This move would most likely remove safety from the list of Giants draft needs, although you never know. Almost no one expected them to select a DE when they took Kiwanuka in 2006.
Either way, it indicates that the Giants saw their need for safety help too immediate was to be relegated to draft day, where there’s no guarantee you get your guy or that he’s ready to contribute right away, the way Rolle would be expected to.
What is clear is that the Giants prioritized a safety over a middle linebacker with their free agency dollars. Of course, the Giants prioritized one player over another player, not a position over another position, but one has to wonder if this situation has implications on how or if the Giants will try to upgrade the MLB position.
My first though revolved around Rolando McClain. The Giants reported interest in Dansby indicated that they are interested in upgrading at MLB, and Miami’s acquisition of Dansby removes a primary roadblock from the “McClain available at 15” highway.
In actuality, the Giants big bucks free agency moves are not colored in any way by the hope that a top-ten talent MLB slips to them at fifteen in late April.
More likely, the “reported interest” in Dansby was a smoke screen aimed at disguising real interest in Rolle, and perhaps coercing Miami into prioritizing Dansby over Rolle, as Miami was also heavily linked to both players.
Although it could change if the Giants pursue McClain or Kirk Morrison (RFA from Oakland), the decision not to seriously entertain Karlos Dansby seems to imply this: the Giants are either comfortable with, or willing to settle for, Jonathon Goff as the starting MLB next year.
Of course, Rolle has and Dansby have yet to be signed, Phillips return to form is far from assured, the RFA market has yet to take shape, and the draft is still seven weeks away, so stay tuned to G101 and we’ll keep you updated with breaking news and analysis on all the offseason rumors and transactions as they happen.
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Source tells Newsday: Antrel Rolle has signed with the Giants
http://twitter.com/newsdaygiants
Atrel Rolle to Giants confirmed. Story coming at PFT. (the morons at PFT can’t spell)
http://twitter.com/ProFootballTalk
%15 MM guaranteed… I can live with that.
5 years, 37 mil, making him the highest paid safety in the league.
Although he’s highly paid, the guarantees work out to about $3M per year. If you consider that some of the rest will be performance based, and if he sees close to that $37M, we would have seen some very impressive safety play.
In other words, I like the deal a lot. Certainly a no brainer with this band of bozos we saw over the last 6 months.
Update up top…update up top….
Worth it to get rid of cc brown. I would have paid $100 million if it had meant we would never have to see what we saw on defense last year ever again. Cc brown is the worst safety I have ever seen. He made Craig dahl and James butler look like probowlers.
Finally i was so sick of the anxiety this was causing me im very excited about this and im glad its a done deal.. plus as simon said the dolphins taking dansby helps our chances at mcclain =) great start to the free agency period
hey great news about antrel!
just because im petty, and i cant even remember who it was i was fighting with, but for all of you that were hating soooo hard on peppers…
suck on this, ****:
During the NFL playoffs, Football Scientist K.C. Joyner wrote a series of “Contrarian Thoughts” pieces, debunking common assumptions. He applies the concept now to free agency.
Pete Rozelle once said that when you live in the limelight, you have to keep in mind the following rule: Character is what you are, and reputation is what people think you are.
That mind-set is especially useful when considering the Bears’ acquisition of free-agent superstar defensive end Julius Peppers. Peppers’ elite skill level is well known, but he also has a reputation as a hot-and-cold player who alternates between going all out and taking some plays off.
This idea got started after Peppers’ subpar 2007 season, when he had a career low in sacks (2.5) and his second-lowest tackle total (38). The fan reaction to this was so intense that I wrote the following in “Scientific Football 2008″:
“The Carolina pass rushing metrics were bad across the board and the one person who has taken more grief than other for this is Julius Peppers. Fans on the ESPN.com SportsNation chats have taken to slamming Peppers for his lack of effort and many media reports either imply or directly make that same assertion.
“What I don’t understand is why Peppers isn’t given a bit more leeway than this. For years, Peppers was one of the hardest working defensive linemen in the league and that didn’t change last season.
“What did change is that Peppers had an offseason illness that caused him to lose a lot of weight. That very well may have been why he lacked energy but instead of leaning on that explanation, many have jumped to the conclusion that he suddenly turned into another overpaid, lazy athlete. All I can say to this is that most of the time, hard working players don’t suddenly become lazy and it would be a surprise if Peppers joined that list.”
Peppers got healthy the following offseason, and that led to his posting 9½ one-on-one sacks in 2008. In order for a sack to be listed in the one-on-one column, a defender has to beat his blocker and get to the quarterback in the pocket in 3 seconds or less. Most defenders get there between 2.7 and 3 seconds, but Peppers had seven sacks that year that occurred under the 2.7-second mark. That is impressive enough, but two of them actually came in 2 seconds or less.
That trend continued in 2009 both in quality (as evidenced by his 2.4-second sack of Kurt Warner in Week 8) and in volume. (He was one of only 13 players to post 10 or more sacks.)
This provides ample evidence for Peppers’ athletic character — he is a consistently hard-working, physical phenom. If he gives the Bears the same kind of pass-rushing impact he gave Carolina for all but the single, illness-affected season, his reputation should soon match his effort level.
K.C. Joyner, aka the Football Scientist, is a regular contributor to ESPN Insider. His Countdown Daily by IBM weekly video matchups can be found every Tuesday here. He also can be found on Twitter (@kcjoynertfs) and at his Web site.