I’m not a fan of what the Giants are doing in free agency. Thus far they’ve been the team most prone to overpays and misfires.
Kenny Golladay, most notably. He was probably the best of the free agent wide receivers available, but New York signed him to a four-year deal averaging at least $18 million. The various insiders have called around and haven’t been able to find a team that was willing to pay over $13 million on him. New York could have signed JuJu Smith-Schuster for half as much and had a lot of money to spend elsewhere.
New York signed Adoree Jackson to a deal worth over $13 million per year. Like Golladay, he missed the vast majority of last season. I think most would agree that Kyle Fuller is better than Jackson (arguably a lot better) and the Broncos got him for about $4 million less.
Down at the other end of the roster, the Giants inked Devontae Booker (the headline of this article) to be their backup running back. He reasonably should be contending to be a backup running back somewhere, but they signed him to a two-year contract worth $5.5 million, which is similar to what Atlanta gave Mike Davis. I thought Davis last year was better than Booker.
Booker, as a refresher, popped some nice runs off the bench in September and October last year, averaging over 5 yards per carry in six of his first nine games. But he didn’t really do much of anything in the final seven weeks. He started one game (at the Jets) and wasn’t much of a factor in that one against a winless opponent (16 carries, 50 yards). Booker averaged only 2.7 yards per carry in his final seven games. The previous year, he hardly played for Denver. And while Booker has some experience on passing downs, the Raiders used Jalen Richard as their primary third-down back.
At the same time, the Giants aren’t even bringing Wayne Gallman to training camp. I thought Gallman was better than Booker last year, giving the Giants some solid play when they started running the ball more late in the year. He ran for 94 yards in a win at Cincinnati and ran for 135 yards in an upset win at Seattle.
Looking at just the second half of the season, Gallman ran for 528 yards – 8th-most in the league. And he averaged 4.8 yards per attempt in those games. Booker in those same eight weeks ran for only 200 yards, averaging 3.3 per carry.
| RUSHING, SECOND HALF OF SEASON | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Att | Run | Avg | TD |
| Derrick Henry, Ten. | 196 | 1,184 | 6.0 | 9 |
| Jonathan Taylor, Ind. | 126 | 753 | 6.0 | 8 |
| Nick Chubb, Cle. | 133 | 732 | 5.5 | 8 |
| Dalvin Cook, Min. | 168 | 699 | 4.2 | 4 |
| Aaron Jones, G.B. | 111 | 657 | 5.9 | 4 |
| David Montgomery, Chi. | 130 | 628 | 4.8 | 8 |
| Melvin Gordon, Den. | 119 | 593 | 5.0 | 5 |
| Wayne Gallman, NYG | 110 | 528 | 4.8 | 4 |
| J.K. Dobbins, Balt. | 82 | 508 | 6.2 | 7 |
| James Robinson, Jac. | 108 | 490 | 4.5 | 3 |
| Josh Jacobs, L.V. | 112 | 477 | 4.3 | 6 |
| Cam Akers, LAR | 110 | 477 | 4.3 | 3 |
| Alvin Kamara, N.O. | 91 | 461 | 5.1 | 13 |
| Ezekiel Elliott, Dall. | 112 | 458 | 4.1 | 2 |
| Ronald Jones, T.B. | 75 | 449 | 6.0 | 4 |
| Kenyan Drake, Ariz. | 120 | 443 | 3.7 | 6 |
| Jeff Wilson, S.F. | 88 | 437 | 5.0 | 5 |
| Miles Sanders, Phil. | 93 | 433 | 4.7 | 3 |
| Antonio Gibson, Was. | 80 | 404 | 5.1 | 6 |
| Gus Edwards, Balt. | 69 | 395 | 5.7 | 3 |
| Chris Carson, Sea. | 75 | 358 | 4.8 | 3 |
| Damien Harris, N.E. | 74 | 341 | 4.6 | 1 |
| Latavius Murray, N.O. | 65 | 335 | 5.2 | 3 |
| Frank Gore, NYJ | 91 | 313 | 3.4 | 2 |
| Kareem Hunt, Cle. | 83 | 312 | 3.8 | 4 |
| Devin Singletary, Buff. | 63 | 302 | 4.8 | 1 |
| Zack Moss, Buff. | 69 | 295 | 4.3 | 2 |
| Mike Davis, Car. | 81 | 292 | 3.6 | 4 |
| Tony Pollard, Dall. | 63 | 286 | 4.5 | 4 |
| David Johnson, Hou. | 44 | 283 | 6.4 | 4 |
| Austin Ekeler, LAC | 67 | 282 | 4.2 | 2 |
| Sony Michel, N.E. | 53 | 276 | 5.2 | 1 |
| Nyheim Hines, Ind. | 56 | 273 | 4.9 | 3 |
| Giovani Bernard, Cin. | 84 | 273 | 3.3 | 2 |
| D'Andre Swift, Det. | 60 | 271 | 4.5 | 5 |
| Adrian Peterson, Det. | 63 | 254 | 4.0 | 5 |
| Brian Hill, Atl. | 52 | 246 | 4.7 | 0 |
| Clyde Edwards-Helaire, K.C. | 60 | 231 | 3.9 | 3 |
| Raheem Mostert, S.F. | 53 | 218 | 4.1 | 1 |
| Jamaal Williams, G.B. | 51 | 211 | 4.1 | 2 |
| Chase Edmonds, Ariz. | 43 | 202 | 4.7 | 2 |
| James Conner, Pitt. | 50 | 201 | 4.0 | 1 |
| Devontae Booker, L.V. | 60 | 200 | 3.3 | 2 |
—Ian Allan