You might not believe Leonard Williams’ rumored asking price

The NY Giants were always going to be in a tricky spot in the Leonard Williams negotiations. Hearing his rumored asking price will make them all the more precarious.

It’s far from a secret to anyone who frequents this establishment where I stand on the whole Leonard Williams saga. From day one, the thing that bothered me the most was how leveraged the NY Giants would be in potential contract negotiations due to giving up meaningful draft capital.

After hearing what Williams’ rumored asking price will be, I’m less confident than ever that Dave Gettleman will be able to salvage this situation, even though I wrote about how it could be possible earlier this week.

Under no circumstances do I not think Leonard Williams has the right – and shouldn’t – explore the possibilities of accumulating every last dollar he can. This league is a fickle one, and any player that gets two chances to cash in is truly lucky.

Williams owes the Giants and Gettleman absolutely nothing. He played half a (mostly losing) season with Big Blue, and he didn’t ask to come here. To him, the NY Giants are likely the same as any other NFL team, and will probably get that treatment in negotiations.

Dave Gettleman’s seat is already scorching hot, and if he is unable to secure Williams to a long-term deal it will somehow become even hotter. Believe me, he knows this and is going to do everything in his power to make sure Williams is a Giant in 2020 and beyond.

Unfortunately for us Giants fan, that’s likely going to mean overpaying to get a deal done before free agency officially starts. Once the clock strikes midnight on March 16th, whether Williams signs or not, the deal becomes an abject failure. It will highlight just how foolish this deal was from the start, being that the Giants could have played out their season and negotiated with him in free agency like any other team.

It’s worth noting that this reported $15M contract number is not able to be confirmed, and that almost every agent ever has asked for the moon and the stars before coming down on their numbers. However, if Williams’ agent doesn’t see that he can easily extract the most money out of the Giants, the 25-year-old defensive lineman may want to explore other options for representations.

I know many are tired of hearing about this whole debacle, but this is going to be an incredibly important moment for this franchise. With so many holes littered throughout this roster, Gettleman is going to have to be shrewd in how he spends every last dollar.

Is giving top-tier money to a player that had .5 sacks (by the way, can we please stop acting like sacks don’t matter) and has been a major disappointment overall really being shrewd? If you were to rank the NY Giants positional groups, the defensive line would be near the top with or without Williams on the team.

To me, there is no rational way for anyone to think Leonard Williams is $14M better than B.J. Hill. The prudent move would be to let Williams walk unless he totally strikes out in free agency, and invest that in a real pass-rusher or an offensive lineman.

With a little more than a month to go, this story -which was doomed from the start – looks to be heading towards an unhappy ending for the franchise.