New York Giants: 10 worst moves of Dave Gettleman era

3. Alec Ogletree trade

To be fair here, unlike many of the rest of these, this is a move I actually really liked at the time. Alec Ogletree was just a year removed from making an All-Pro team in 2016, and Jerry Reese had left the New York Giants completely devoid of talent in the linebacker department over the years. For once, it seemed, we’d finally have a sideline-to-sideline linebacker for the first time since Antonio Pierce.

Wrong. To say Alec Ogletree has been bad at his job since becoming a Giant would be a true slap in the face to the many people around this country that are actually just bad at their job. Ogletree has been an abomination for his entire tenure with Big Blue, and his interceptions in 2018 helped masked just how awful he really was (50.6 PFF grade in ’18 despite the five picks).

A linebacker with a completion percentage allowed of 88% would be bad enough under any circumstance, but it becomes exponentially worse when the team gave up a fourth and a sixth-round draft pick for the ‘right’ to pay said linebacker 42M$ over four years. Gettleman should have been wary when the Rams were so willing to part with a young player they just locked up to a big deal with zero character concerns, but he wasn’t.

This one has everything to do with outcome rather than failing to line up with a plan or predicting that this would happen, but it still rightly lands in the top three all the same. There is no describing just how bad Ogletree has been, and the only time the Giant defense looked functional this season was in the second half of the Tampa Bay game in Week 3 when he left with an injury early on, and the Washington game the following week that he missed as well.

This is one Gettleman would like to have back, big time, as it was one of his seminal moves, and probably the one that’s hurt this porous defense the most.