NFL free agency is set to begin soon, and as such, much of the narrative around the New York Giants right now revolves around which players they might sign in free agency and which ones are out of their grasp. There’s a lot of positions that need improvement and only so much cap space and draft picks to work with, which will force the team to prioritize where they want to invest the most heavily in.
Cornerback is one position that should get significant attention during this offseason. Poor play at cornerback and in the secondary in general made the entire defense play worse last season, with several games being decided by small margins – in these games, the results could have generally been different with a couple more big plays from the secondary.
The Giants currently don’t have a true leader of the secondary after the departure of the controversial Janoris Jenkins last season, and acquiring a new one may be on their list of offseason goals. If so, there’s one recently released player that they should take a close look at: Xavier Rhodes.
Rhodes was just released from the Vikings, after 104 games for the team and a career with them that saw him make the Pro Bowl as well as the All-Pro team. He had a poor season last year but his previous performances are enough to warrant a look anyway. The Giants had success last year with Markus Golden, after all, who they picked up despite a recent slump only to benefit from the player making a return to form.
The 29 year old Rhodes is still young enough to have a bounce back season in him and may not be as expensive as a premium player thanks to his drop off in play which resulted in him being released – he was also still good enough to make the Pro Bowl and his drop off wasn’t necessarily a dramatic one. While Rhodes had no interceptions, his combined tackles went up and his passes defended only dropped by one compared to the 2018 season.
The real comparison that needs to be made isn’t between 2019 and 2018, but 2019 and 2017, when Rhodes was an All-Pro… Back in 2017, he had one interception and 10 passes defended compared to 6. But the gap isn’t that dramatic.
Rhodes hasn’t exactly fallen off a cliff and because of that, he looks like a possible target for the Giants, who need help at the position badly after finding out last season what the outcome of putting a leading role on the then-rookie DeAndre Baker is. It remains to be seen how much Rhodes wants in free agency, but a move is at least one the Giants should consider.