4. Kevin Abrams
It is likely that only the most astute Giants fans are familiar with who Kevin Abrams even is. Despite that fact, Abrams deserves to be a focal point as one of the main reasons that the NY Giants have had disastrous results over a span of nearly a decade.
Abrams has been a part of the Giants organization’s front office for 21 years now. He served as their salary cap analyst from 1999-2001 before being promoted to assistant general manager in 2002. Abrams would serve in that role until 2017 when he was promoted to interim general manager following Jerry Reese’s dismissal from the team.
While Abrams was a candidate to replace Reese, the Giants ownership group ultimately opted to go with Dave Gettleman as their choice as general manager. However, Abrams was retained and became the vice president of football operations/assistant general manager, a role that he has held since 2018.
Abrams has primarily been tasked with managing the salary cap situation for the Giants during his tenure with the team. He has no background in scouting and served strictly as a financial analyst who assisted with negotiations and with determining the values associated with player’s contracts.
As a result, Abrams has played a critical role in many of the largely failed contracts that have been dished out by the team under both former general manager Jerry Reese and current general manager Dave Gettleman. In recent years, the Giants have had one of the worst salary cap situations of any team in the NFL, not exactly a ringing endorsement for someone whose primary role with the organization is cap management.
Coming into the 2019 season, the Giants ranked dead last in the league in available cap space with a measly $457,948 of cap space remaining to begin the year. Additionally, the Giants led the league with dead cap space, paying nearly $35 million in 2019 to players no longer on the roster.
In addition to mishandling the salary cap, Abrams was also reportedly a driving force behind the team deciding to keep Eli Manning on the roster for what amounted to $23.2 million dollars against the cap this year. Abrams reportedly made it known to ownership that he felt Eli still had a couple of good years left in him, which led the team to pick up Manning’s option before the season.
When an individual has been an integral part of the Giant’s front office for 21 years and has served in a role that has allowed him to be a major voice in the decision-making process, that person should be examined as part of the failures of the Giants. Given that the primary function of Abrams was to assure that he put the Giants in a favorable salary cap situation and they are squarely in the worst situation in the NFL, a large portion of the failure of the Giants needs to be directed towards him.