The New York Giants may have some firings on their hands if the biggest trade move of another lost season, one that sent two draft picks to the Jets for defensive lineman Leonard Williams, turns out to be an eight game rental. The team is gambling a lot on Leonard in the hopes that the player will revitalize a defensive line that, while it’s been better than it was last year, is still recovering from the departures of several players over the past year or so.
The only problem with that plan, other than Leonard’s up and down play with the Jets and lackluster last season? Leonard will be an unrestricted free agent following this season if a new contract isn’t agreed upon before free agency.
Obviously, the Giants don’t want to have sent two draft picks to the Jets only for the player that they received in return to walk after half a season, ultimately giving them nothing during a year where the Giants aren’t even competitive for the playoff race.
According to Adam Schefter, the Giant aren’t going to wait too long to start negotiations with Williams. Their goal is to open contract talks before Thanksgiving, which is a far cry from how the team handled one of their last major free agent situations, the one around Landon Collins.
This time, the team doesn’t intend to cut close to the deadline to sign a new deal before Williams becomes an unrestricted free agent.
The Giants made the choice to leave their pre-trade deadline moves to just the Williams trade, not moving other players such as Evan Engram, who was said to be untouchable, and veterans Janoris Jenkins and Alec Ogletree.
Will that strategy of keeping everything the same except for bring in Williams work out long term? We’ll see over the next eight games, but the most important thing out of everything is making sure that Williams remains on the team and doesn’t simply walk away after his contract is up.