Nate Solder has been a massive disappointment in his New York Giants tenure. Should Dave Gettleman get out in front of his own mistake, and trade him to the Browns, if it’s really an option?
You’d be hard pressed to find a single player on this underwhelming New York Giants football team that has more heat on him from the fanbase than left tackle Nate Solder, and for good reason. In his signature free agent move as GM, Dave Gettleman handed Solder the richest offensive lineman free agent contract in NFL history – the former Patriot was failed to live up to anywhere near those standards.
While it’s hard to believe that any other NFL team could see the play of the veteran after getting that contract, and then want to acquire him, that appears to be the case. According to Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports, the Browns just might be crazy and desperate enough to give it a whirl.
If the Browns are unable to pry Trent Williams out of Washington, the other LT I hear they are interested in is Nate Solder. They've already done a lot of business with the NYG, it's worth noting
— Jason La Canfora (@JasonLaCanfora) October 23, 2019
If you’ve watched any Cleveland Browns football this year, you can certainly begin to understand why they are searching for offensive line- and left tackle in particular- help. While I think going after a guy like Trent Williams makes all the sense in the world for them, I just find it hard to wrap my head around the fact that this is a legitimate scenario.
With that said, if it is in fact in any way possible, Dave Gettleman needs to get on the phone immediately and at least try to make it happen. Now, we all know Gettleman doesn’t like to make the first call because that ‘hinders negotiations’ (insert heavy eye roll), so hopefully Cleveland will or already has reached out. If not, just getting wind of La Canfora’s tweet should be enough for him to place a call to Browns GM John Dorsey.
John Dorsey is a highly-respected personnel man who built the Cheifs into what they are today, but the pressure is really starting to mount on him in Cleveland. After seemingly turning the Browns around from a winless football team to a supposed Super Bowl contender, Dorsey now has a world of pressure on him after the team has stumbled out of the gates to a 2-4 record.
In the interest of being consistent, I have constantly made it known just how much I disagree with Gettleman not realizing how damaging dead cap is to a franchises development. However, in this case, dead cap is something that should not even really be considered. Nate Solder has shown himself to be mediocre at this stage in his career, and getting any of his money off the books (after further kicking the can down the road by restructuring his contract earlier this year) is the move to make.
Apparently there are people out there that actually think this is a bad idea, even people that I actually respect. Count Giants beat writer, Art Stapleton of Northjersey.com ,as one of those people.
I don't know about you, but when developing a rookie quarterback, it doesn't make sense to trade the starting veteran left tackle for a mid-round pick without even an adequate replacement on the roster.
— Art Stapleton (@art_stapleton) October 23, 2019
No matter how much that left tackle is being paid, no matter his struggles.
To say that I disagree with Art’s premise here, that trading Solder would be a hindrance to Daniel Jones’ development, would be the understatement of the century. For starters, Nate Solder has already been an enormous hindrance for Jones’ development each and every Sunday. Solder is tied for third in the NFL with five sacks allowed, while sporting a 64.4 overall Pro Football Focus grade. Solder has allowed 26 pressures on 321 pass block snaps, which is ‘good’ for a 8% pressure rate – no where near the rate you’d want from your starting left tackle.
His point would make a little more sense to me if I didn’t disagree with him on the Giants having no one to replace Solder’s shoddy play (is replacing shoddy play really hard to do anyway?). I have been on the record here that I love the future prospects of Nick Gates, who the team currently lists as a backup guard, but has played some tackle in the pre-season and played the position throughout his standout career at Nebraska. Wouldn’t it be nice to trot out some young guys in a lost season, instead of seeing the same overpriced vets contribute to even more losses?
The team also likes Chad Slade, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say there’s very little chance that either of them could play much worse than Solder has. Still though, even if they do play a little worse, the team at least gets to start developing young talent at the position, while also ridding itself of Solder’s monster contract – isn’t that what rebuilding is?
While signing Nate Solder in the first place is a complete indictment on Gettleman for not realizing this team needed to be completely rebuilt from the get-go, and that overpaying for a guy on the wrong side of 30 was never the way to go, that is not enough of a reason to not move on from him now. The Giants will incur a 13-million dollar dead cap charge on Solder whether he’s on the team next year or not, so since this team is going nowhere fast it’s better to get out in front of things now.
If the Browns are even willing to give us a seventh-round draft pick, that would have to be considered a steal. The bottom line here is, any more time that Nate Solder spends as the left tackle for the New York Giants is a hindrance to the rebuilding of this franchise, and the future development of Daniel Jones.
Hopefully Dave Gettleman will be able to swallow his pride and admit his massive mistake, even if it only equates to 6.5-million dollars in savings next year — at least that’s something.