New York Giants Pending UFAs: An Early Guess on Who Stays, and Who Goes

Goes

CB Adoree’ Jackson

General manager Joe Schoen has only been in the job now for two seasons, but if there’s one thing, we’ve learned about him is that if he resists touching a big salary cap eating contract number on a player, it usually means that player isn’t much longer for the team.

Such has been the case with Jackson, who has a voidable year in his deal in which $2.988 million will hit the team’s 2024 dead money ledger. This year, Jackson’s $11 million base salary (part of a $19.076 million cap hit) wasn’t touched. That plus the emergence of first-round pick Deonte Banks as the team’s likely new No. 1 cornerback indicates strongly that the Giants are likely to move on from the year-old Jackson after this season.

OL Justin Pugh

Pugh’s return to the team that drafted him No. 19 overall in 2013 has been a nice story, and he’s tried to be a johnny-on-the-spot when injuries to the offensive line forced him to play left tackle (not a fit) and then left guard. But the more he played, the more evident it became that his better years were behind him and that the team desperately needs a better option at that left guard, no matter how much energy and leadership Pugh brings to the table.

S Xavier McKinney

McKinney is the kind of player the Giants should bend over backward to retain. However, there have been signs all along that the two parties are likely headed toward a split, starting with some lackluster early-season play from the safety to his calling out of Wink Martindale. 

Toss in the emergence of Dane Belton, who can play both safety roles in the Giants defense and the likelihood that someone is probably going to throw a lot of money at McKinney, and it’s probably safe to say he’s not going to be back.

QB Tyrod Taylor

The Giants quarterback room is going to look quite different next year, and that look is unlikely to include Taylor, a solid backup who at times can be a little inconsistent with his play (see the Rams game last week). The Giants are in a position to draft a premium talent from a very deep quarterbacks class, and if they can get the guy they want in the first round, they absolutely should do so.

The worst case for the team is that if Daniel Jones, whom head coach Brian Daboll said would be the starter next year once healthy, isn’t ready to go following his ACL surgery, Tommy DeVito, who is under contract, can start the season while the coaches get a rookie ready to go and then go from there. And as for Taylor, he’ll find work if he wants it; it just probably won’t be with the Giants.

IDL A'Shawn Robinson

The 28-year-old Robinson signed a 4-year, $5 million deal that had three voidable years to help spread out the $2.8 million signing bonus. Has played well enough to warrant another contract. But the Giants also have some young talent in D.J. Davidson and Jordon Riley in the pipeline and who have played decently enough to continue being developed.

If there’s one thing the Giants have going for them that makes the potential departure of Robinson easier to swallow, it’s the presence of defensive line coach Andre Patterson, who has sent a player to the Pro Bowl in seven of the last nine seasons (including with the Vikings).

WR Parris Campbell

The Giants never really seemed to find a role for Campbell on their offense and began leaving him inactive as the year went on. New York will likely look to add a No. 1 receiver to a core group that should include Darius Slayton, Wan’Dale Robinson, and Jalin Hyatt.

OLB Jihad Ward

Defensive coordinator Wink Martindale once said something to the effect that wherever he goes, he wants Jihad Ward with him. While Ward has versatility—he can play as a down lineman and outside linebacker, the Giants really need to get a difference making outside linebacker to join Kayvon Thibodeaux and (if he can stay healthy) Azeez Ojulari if they ever want to take that pass rush of theirs to the next level.

RB Matt Breida

Breida hasn’t been a bad player for the Giants, but the team did draft Eric Gray last year with the intention of him taking on a larger role, either as the RB1 if Barkley moves on, or at the very least, the RB2 role behind Barkley, a role that has been held by Breida the last two seasons.

WR Sterling Shepard

The longest-tenured Giant has likely reached the end of the road not only with the team but in his career. While he never won a championship during his eight seasons here, Shepard was nothing short of the consummate professional who was loved and respected by all levels of the organization. That he gets to potentially leave the game on his own terms—healthy versus being on IR—should be celebrated when he takes the field for the final time on Sunday.

K Randy Bullock

Bullock was brought in as a stop gap after Graham Gano landed on IR with a knee issue. And speaking of Gano, if he’s not fully ready to go next spring—and the expectation is that he might not be—the Giants will likely sign Cade York, currently on practice squad/IR, to a reserve/futures contract to serve as insurance.

C/G J.C. Hassenauer

Remember Hassenauer? Few Giants fans do, so to refresh your memories he was signed as a UFA after the Giants lost centers Jon Feliciano and Nick Gates in free agency, this before they drafted John Michael Schmitz to be their center of the future. The 28-year-old Hassenauer, who signed a veteran salary benefit deal, landed on injured reserve during training camp. While he didn’t cost the Giants much, the team will probably go in a different direction in finding depth behind Schmitz for 2024.

CB Darnay Holmes

The Giants finally found a viable option in replacing Holmes as the full-time slot cornerback. However, Holmes didn’t quietly fade into the night; he established himself as a solid punt gunner option, where he’s played well opposite of cornerback Nick McCloud. Holmes’s special teams play alone should warrant a second contract; however, the team did ask him to take a pay cut to stay, so there could be an unwillingness on Homes’s part to play ball if the Giants do approach him about an extension.

OL Shane Lemieux

Lemieux showed some promise as a rookie at left guard, but his inability to stay healthy makes him too much of a gamble to invest a second contract in.

LB Cam Brown

Keeping guys strictly for special teams isn’t a bad idea—teams do it all the time. But with the Giants, they’ll likely move on from Brown, replacing him with Darrian Beavers, who was added to the 53-man roster late in the season.