Connor Barwin isn’t going to go down in the record books as having a long career with the New York Giants. The outside linebacker who was brought in last offseason to improve the pass rush had high expectations after making the switch from the Los Angeles Rams, but after only spending one season with the team, Barwin has been released with one year left on his contract.
The contract originally had two years and was worth $3.5M. Many believed that Barwin’s role would be to help out the pass rush and support younger players such as Lorenzo Carter, but it doesn’t seem like that’s what happened. Rather, Barwin was overshadowed this season by the others at the outside linebacker position.
Barwin played in 15 games this season and registered only 12 tackles. That’s the worst number of his career, even worse than his rookie season in 2009 where the total came to 16. Barwin also had only half as many tackles as he did in the previous season, with the Rams. After picking up 34 tackles in both 2016 and 2017, the 2018 season will go down as a major disappointment.
The production in the sack department wasn’t much better either. Barwin had five sacks during each of the two prior years, but could only manage one in 2018. Not good numbers for someone who was mainly brought in because of being a talented pass rusher. The poor performances led to Barwin starting most of the team’s game on the bench, appearing in the starting lineup only three times.
The Giants will save some money with the release, but will still have to spend $365k in dead money after releasing Barwin from a contract that had $1.25M left to be paid this year. With the release, second year linebacker Lorenzo Carter should have a larger role. After all, the Giants no longer need the player that was brought in partly for the purpose of helping him improve his game.