Loading ...Yesterday we passed along a tweet from WFAN's Paul Dottino that suggested a later-rather-than-sooner projection for the return of injured New York Giants cornerback Terrell Thomas and indicated that injured reserve remained a possibility. Naturally, that got us talking around here: can the Giants afford to carry Thomas in the roster even if it's far from certain when he'll be able so suit up?
Some said yes: Thomas is good enough and worth waiting for. Others said no: roster spots are too precious, especially with Chris Canty and possible others starting the season not healthy enough to play. But it got me thinking: might the Giants release Thomas with an injury settlement allowing him to return later in the season?
Bear with me here. Despite a four-year deal with a big total number attached, Thomas' contract is for all intents and purposes a one-year "show me" deal. The team holds a $6 million option bonus for 2013, with another couple million in salary and incentives; Thomas is either going to earn that big money with healthy play in 2012 or the Giants are gong to want to revisit that whole, you know, big money thing.
At this point, even best case scenario, it looks like the ship has unfortunately sailed on healthy play for Thomas in 2012. We love Thomas. He's one of the nicest guys on the team and a heck of a player, but the uncertainty surrounding his most recent setback from his second ACL surgery makes it unlikely the Giants are going to be picking up that bonus and honoring that contract next year. And why would you bother sending to injured reserve a player whose rights you are not interested in keeping the following year?
Look, I'm just spitballing here, but if the Giants were to waive Thomas with an injury settlement (at least equal to his base salary of $1 million) then he would be a free agent and able to return later this season when his knee is ready to go.
Obviously, it exposes him to free agency (and everyone here is still a bit battle scarred from the Jake Ballard incident), but not only would Thomas not be subject to waivers, it's unlikely he would draw a ton of interest given his situation. No reason to think he and the Giants wouldn't welcome each other with open arms when Thomas was ready to go (especially if the injury settlement is amicable).
We're not saying this is going to happen (in fact, we think the Giants will probably just carry Thomas as long as possible and as long as there's hope he'll be able to contribute. After all, there's eight guys who wear street clothes to games every week anyway). But this injury settlement scenario is just another possibility in the "injured reserve" or "wait for him" debate.
One that would allow Thomas and the team to have their cake and eat it too.
Also…
- Be sure to like Giants 101 on Facebook, follow Giants 101 on Twitter & +1 Giants 101 on Google+
- Text "oneteam" to 20222 to donate $10 to the One Team for the Lights charity initiative.
Related Videos
Returning Soon!!!!No related posts.
Short URL: http://sport-ne.ws/j8s
Time for roster speculation … here’s my take so far … naturally the next couple weeks could change things … and of course all IMHO.
***
QB – Keep 2 – Eli Manning and David Carr. A no-brainer.
RB – Keep 4 – Bradshaw, Wilson, Ware, and Hynoski. Scott on the bubble, and a difficult cut. But the league is full of average RBs.
WR – Keep 6 – Nicks, Cruz, Randle, Hixon, Jernigan, and Barden. Sadly no one else has shown enough to replace Barden even though Ramses has done absolutely nothing.
TE – Keep 3 – Bennett, Pascoe, and Robinson. No-brainer.
OL – Keep 10 – Baas, Diehl, Boothe, Snee, Beatty, Locklear, Brewer, McCants, Mosley, Cordle. The Petrus experiment ends in failure.
DL – Keep 10 – JPP, Tuck, Osi, Bernard, Thomas, Austin, Hendricks, Joseph, Tracy and errr und Kuhn … with Canty heading to PUP. Hendricks goes to PS when Canty comes off PUP. Kuhn is favored over Hendricks simply because Hendricks is more apt to spend a quiet year on the PS.
LB – Keep 6 – Kiwi, Blackburn, Boley, Herzlich, Rivers, and Williams. The Samoan goes to PS … dammit.
DB – Keep 9 – Prince, C-web, Coe, Hosley, Hill, Rolle, Phillips, Sash**, TT. Tryon might have a shot depending on TT’s medical situation.
Special teams – Keep 3 – Tynes, Weatherford, DeOssie. Same old … same old.
** Paysinger – 4 game ‘free roster ride’ due to Sash suspension, and has a real shot at making the team for the full year.
can’t see G-Men going with less than 7 LBs and Paysinger is not getting cut
Like Kuhn, Coughlin goes out of his way to praise this guy time and again
I don’t know about 3 RBs; likely one of Brown or Scott makes the roster – personally I would take both over Ware who has shown absolutely nothing this summer
if I’m right you have to drop 1 O-Land one D-L — Cordle gets the ax as Boothe can back up at center and Petrus slides in at guard
Bernard gets waived and as you say once Canty comes off the PUP Hendricks goes to PS
If Canty isn’t PUP’d then Hendricks goes to PS immediately
if the giants do cut Greg Jones, they will need to replace his special teams production; I heard the other day that he led the team in tackles
to me, that means one of Douglas, DePalma or Stanbach
Douglas and DePalma can probably be stashed on the PS so I think Stanbach sticks and Barden is released
You have them keeping TT; I can’t see it
He’s shelved until at least mid-season and if he did return then you wouldn’t know if his knee would hold up until it did
I agree with Simon — it is more likely that he is waived outright than he is kept on the active 53
I’m not cutting Paysinger … just tagging him as the winner of the Sash Suspension Sweepstakes. TT’s future is definitely up in the air though. Anything could happen.
You don’t get to keep 54 just because Sash’s suspension is imminent. At least I don’t think so. In your scenario, you would need to waive Paysinger, to get to 53. When Sash is suspended, you could re-sign Paysinger if he had cleared waivers. Doubtful nobody picks him up.
It depends on when the league defines their “game week” and what day of the week the suspension typically begins. I doubt if a player may be allowed to practice with a team in the week leading up to a game for which he is suspended, so it’s probably Monday thru Sunday.
My point is the timing is tricky. You need to trim your roster to 53 first. Then the player is suspended and you are granted a roster exemption for him. This is deep in the weeds kind of stuff. Anybody know for sure?
The Giants may break with their usual MO and keep an extra player in one of two positions:
They may keep a 7th WR instead of 6. There are a couple of guys who can play the position and contribute on STs, but are not PS-eligible anymore (DePalma and Stanback).
They may keep a 7th LB for STs and LB depth as well. Given the health history of the unit, it makes sense to do this. Boley, Rivers, Herlzich, and Williams have not been reliably healthy players within the last 12 months.
Although it’s just speculation at this point, I think the Giants would IR him instead of waive him, for the simple fact that, although they may decide to just cut him next year, by putting him on IR, they’d at least be able to rehab him and own his rights and look to renegotiate if he turns the corner, vs. compete with the market. And if they couldn’t renegotiate, then cut him.
I also don’t think they keep 7 WRs at all. 2 Pro Bowlers, a 2nd rounder, Hixon is solid enough, they look to 2 more for depth/ST. If they can’t figure out which 2 of the last 3 are NFL calibur by next week, they won’t while they’re healthy scratches all season.
That should read “if they can’t figure out whether the last guy of the last 3 is NFL calibur…”
I agree. Unless they hit some contract milestone then cutting him only saves the difference between a depth ‘guy’ ($400,000 est) and TT’s $1,000,000 ‘show me’ salary. If Frank were here he’d point out that Kate Mara snorts that in a week. Why give up his rights for what amounts to chump change?
Of course this all changes if they hit some timed escalators. And in that case I’d expect every option would be put on the table.
I should also note that in that scenario of 6 WR, Barden is gone, because the remaining of Jernigan and #6 would need to provide special team help.
Barden was here last year because the proven guys were Nicks and Manningham and hot prospect was Jernigan. This year, add Cruz, Randle, Hixon, subtract Manningham, and that’s 2 less slots for Barden to latch on to.
Tonight’s game will give us a good idea of who they’re trying to make a decision on. Anyone getting surprise snaps probably means there’s an evaluation process going on. And anyone ignored … then the decision’s probably been made … one way or the other.
I think Simon clearly lays out why I don’t IR would be the right option with TT. The question is do you keep him on the roster or not? After thinking about this more I think you keep TT on the roster, at least at first. I think we can keep 6 CBs and 3 safeties until Sash returns. Then we look at TT’s progress, we can cut him then or a CB or a DT. We also judge it by CB health. If our guys are healthy then carrying TT isn’t really a burden since as others have mentioned 7 don’t dress anyways. If we do get guys banged up and TT can’t help us then we just have to cut him.
The reason I think this is probably the right course of action is the performance by our end of the roster CBs. TT at less than 100% could perform better than these players. CComing into the season I expect much more from especially Tryon. But there are still 2 preseason games left and quality performance by Coe, Tryon, Bing, etc. could knock TT off the roster. Also a waiver addition is possible. So while I say keep TT today that can easily change depended upon performances tomorrow.
Even winout Hosley I hope we let other CBs get a shot at slot CB. We know what Rolle can and cant do. Lets see if Tryon, Bing, Johnson could be a backup possibility.
As far as the roster projections on the OL I think some are making a mistake. I see Petrus has become a popular surprise cut player, I disagree but that’s not important. What’s important is that rosters that have exclude him have no true 3rd guard on their roster. With to concern about Beatty I just dont see Diehl being moved inside as our first solution or Lockear for that matter. I think either Petrus or Capers or another guard has to be on the roster.
If Petrus is cut Cordle clearly stays has he would be the back up center and guard
since when is Petrus getting cut?
He’s the best run blocker on the team; maybe the worst pass blocker
I have no idea what they’ll do. The combination of talent they’ve put together and untimely injuries means that there are a lot of decisions that are way out of anyone’s comfort zone within the organization.
What I do know is that from what we’ve seen so far not only did our first three picks turn out to be brilliant and add significant talent to a championship team, but the free agency pickups of Bennett, Locklear, Rivers and Hill look like strokes of genius at this point.
What have we lost from a team that played championship ball down the stretch last season? Manningham, McKenzie, Ross and Jacobs. We also have an injured Canty. I don’t count Beatty or Thomas because we didn’t have them last season down the stretch anyway.
I believe the defensive secondary, with Amukamara starting to come into his own (based on practice reports and the comments from other players and coaches) and the addition of Hosley, is significantly better than it was in 2011. Ross IS missed, but Reese more than made up for him with Hosley and Hill (although the second may have been a lucky signing and they did think Thomas would be healthy this season, we’re still better off than last year).
I have no doubt that a backfield with David Wilson added is going to be much better than the one we had last season, provided that someone on the team takes on Jacobs’ emotional leadership role and shows his toughness and nasty streak. That was a bigger loss than his running ability. I think Bradshaw, Diehl, Baas, and Rolle have to pick up that mantle and run with it.
We will miss Manningham. Hixon, Jernigan and Randle will make up for much of what he provided but Mario made a lot of big catches down the stretch when teams had to focus on Hakeem and Victor. Will someone reproduce that? I believe they will, but the proof will be in the pudding.
The offensive line should be at least as good as it was last season. I loved McKenzie and was a big booster for years but last season he declined. From my vantage point Locklear looks like a pretty decent tackle and is better than Kareem was last season. And we have a healthy Baas now. The addition of Mosley should help later in the season.
Canty needs to get healthy but we have more than enough guys now who are fully capable of giving us what we need at defensive tackle while awaiting his return to action. After thinking about this for a few days I don’t really care if they PUP him or not. We definitely lose something if he isn’t playing, but if all we’ll get out of him is a few games before he could otherwise play I’m now confident enough in the others that I think they could hold the fort. The team will have to make a tough decision about that because not PUPing him means losing a player you cut who could help in particular situations (ie. Stanback or Jones on special teams).
In any case, as far as I can see, this team is BETTER than the team we had last season, and that one won a championship. While we’d love to be able to say this team is heads-and-tails better than every other team in the NFL, the GM’s job (and the jobs of the coaches and all the personnel people in the front office) is to improve the team every year. IN a salary cap era that improvement is almost always going to be incremental. The Giants, IMO, have done that. Now let’s play the games and see what happens.
Forgot the loss of Ballard. Bennett is a better player than Ballard and will prove it. He’s a definite plus for this team.
don’t forget Boley is injured and his immediate return is dicey
but I agree in general
the one thing I would say is we keep arguing that the O-Line was good enough last year to win so if we are as good as last year we should be fine
I think that’s a fallacious argument. The only reason we had a shot at the playoffs last year was because of the unprecedented simultaneous bad play of all
3 NFC East teams — by all rights, following the 2d Skins game we should have been planning our January vacation.
Once we got to the playoffs, yes we played better, but we played 3 lousy defenses. The one good defense we played nearly destroyed our QB and if the Niners actually fielded a real NFL QB, they would have beaten us easily
the thing that worries me about this line is that we can’t sustain any drives; and when we do, we can’t finish inside the 20
we thrived last season on the big play
can that really be replicated?
I don’t know
the line pretty much stinks in both run and pass blocking, and stinks to a man
thus far in 2 meaningless games we’ve managed about a yard per carry running and Eli has taken a number of hits
the line stinks
if it doesn’t get a lot better fast, the offense will be incredibly erratic and we will once again have to pin our hopes on the 50, 60, 70, 80, 99 yard TD passes to Nicks and Cruz
Valid points all. But I think we can count on a far better defense this season that will allow fewer points, allowing an erratic offense that depends upon big plays a chance to still win plenty of games.
Frankly, if I thought we had a better offensive line I’d say this is a 14-win team. Right now I’d happily take 10-11 and take my chances.
ProFootballTalk ?@ProFootballTalk
NFLRA negotiator says league planned to lock refs out for first month of regular season
For all the struggles of the OL last year. The real difference was our defense becoming healthy and performing up to their talent level in the last 6 games. Truthfully we might have run the ball better just because we were behind the whole game and had a better chance to establish to run in the final 6 games. Thus, the OL probably looked better in pass protection because teams had to respect the threat of our run in the last 6 games.