This Contract Named as Giants’ “Biggest Mistake” in Last Five Years

The Giants thought they were getting a great value in receiver Kenny Golladay. They were wrong.

Kenny Golladay of the Giants in the second half. The Houston Texans at the New York Giants in a game played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ on November 13, 2022. / Chris Pedota, NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK

By virtue of their 27-53-1 record since 2020, it’s fair to say the New York Giants have made many mistakes that have sabotaged their efforts to move forward as an organization.

However, in a recent exercise done for all 32 NFL teams, ESPN’s Bill Barnwell weighed in on what he felt was the Giants’ biggest mistake made over that period. 

That decision was the signing of free-agent wide receiver Kenny Golladay to a 4-year, $72 million contract with $28 million guaranteed in 2021 by then-general manager Dave Gettleman.

Barnwell, who passed over the Daniel Jones contract extension and the team’s letting Saquon Barkley leave via free agency, noted that everything about the Golladay contract was a fiasco.

“The former Lions wideout had missed most of the 2020 season due to hamstring and hip injuries. A remarkably cold wide receiver market left just about everybody else settling for short-term or modest deals, suggesting he would follow. 

“Instead, former general manager Dave Gettleman signed him to a deal with $40 million in practical guarantees over the first two seasons. It was a contract that showed no regard for the dynamics of what was going on during the 2021 offseason.”

Barnwell is spot-on in his selection. Again, while one might argue that extending Daniel Jones was a mistake, the Giants did at least put an escape hatch into the deal that, although it will cost them $22 million in dead cap money next year, will only count for approximately 8% of the team’s projected cap space which per the NFL Network will fall somewhere between $265 and $275 million.

That percentage does not consider any carryover by the Giants or postseason accounting when bonuses are paid out, or incentives that weren’t reached are credited back, meaning that it could drop even more. 

Barnwell also didn’t cite the decisions by the current regime to allow Saquon Barkley and Xavier McKinney to walk away in free agency, noting that in Tyrone Tracy, Jr. and Tyler Nubin, the Giants might have found their replacements for those two former team captains and top producers.

Golladay, though, was indeed a disaster. The Giants got one touchdown in 26 games played from the oft-injured receiver, who averaged 23.2 receiving yards per game and 1.1 yards per route run, which ranked 80th out of the 88 wide receivers who ran at least 500 routes over that time frame. 

While the idea of getting a No. 1 receiver wasn’t the mistake in itself, rolling the dice on a player who was coming off injuries as Golladay had been was the mistake, as the injury bug followed him from Detroit to the Giants. 

When the Gettleman-Joe Judge era was ushered out the door in favor of the Joe Schoen-Brian Daboll era, Golladay’s attitude and, in particular, his sense of self-entitlement and airing of his grievances to the media about how little he was getting the ball ultimately contributed to his being cut after the 2022 season. 

Golladay went on to have a workout with the Jets before the 2023 season, but they didn’t sign him. He’s been out of football since.

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