Signing players following the NFL Draft tends to be something rather routine, as most of the time the process happens without any major incident. Players are drafted, they sign with their teams, and then training camp begins… Or that’s how the process usually goes, anyway. There’s still a small amount of players that haven’t agreed to deals with their new teams and the New York Giants up until recently had two of those players.
But outside linebacker prospect and third round draft pick Oshane Ximines signed with the team very soon after our article about how the Giants should get the deal done and avoid future offseason drama, which leaves one player as the last unsigned rookie going into the final days before training camp.
That player, though, happens to be one of the more speculated upon members of the team this offseason. After being taken with the number six overall pick, Daniel Jones is still the odd man out in terms of agreeing to a deal.
It hasn’t turned into a real contract holdout just yet but it’s something to keep an eye on considering the start of training camp is this Friday and the negotiations are dragging out longer than they have for other draft picks both for the Giants and for the league in general.
It’s also easy to assume that nothing is going to come of this and that Jones is just going to sign as expected, albeit a bit later than other players. While there is a decent chance of that happening, just as Ximines agreed to a deal recently, it can’t be automatically assumed that this will be the outcome. The neighboring New York Jets, for example, are going through some troubles with their top draft pick Quinnen Williams, who didn’t report for camp with the rest of the team’s rookies.
Sam Darnold, taken by the Jets in the draft last year, also missed three training camp practices due to problems getting a contract sorted out in time.
The hope for the Giants, of course, is that this won’t happen and that Jones’ contract is simply taking longer than usual to get signed. But all of the possibilities can’t be discounted immediately, and if this stretches on, we might just end up with the first ‘drama’ of training camp.