NY Giants finally release Antoine Bethea, clear more cap space

In a move that many NY Giants fans will celebrate, the team moved on from veteran safety Antoine Bethea on Wednesday.

It finally happened. After many people feeling like Antoine Bethea should have been released long ago, Dave Gettleman made the call Wednesday and Bethea is no longer a member of the NY Giants. A popular scapegoat (rightly so) for many of Big Blue’s defensive struggles in 2019, Bethea will have trouble securing another contract at 35-years-old.

Always a curious signing, Bethea was the last in a long line of former Arizona Cardinals players that flamed out following James Bettcher to the NY Giants. Quite possibly miscast in his role as a free safety, Bethea profiles more as an in the box type of player now than anything else and he was routinely burned deep in coverage all season long.

The move will save Big Blue $3M in cap space that the team can use right away, which raises the question of was this move made at this specific time for a reason? I’m inclined to say yes, as it’s just too curious that this happened in the middle of free agency.

If Dave Gettleman never had any plans of keeping Bethea around, he would have just cut him before the period started. On the flip side, if he intended to keep him around as it seemed, he would only be releasing him now because there’s possibly a player that’s contract demands have come down and the team feels like they are in play.

Who that player is is anyone’s guess. The defense is still lacking a premier edge rusher, while almost no moves have been made on the offense save for a third-string tight end. If I had to guess, it’s probably someone like Markus Golden, Dante Fowler Jr. or even Leonard Floyd that’s got them wanting to expand their cap space at this moment.

It’s likely that Jadeveon Clowney is way out of the team’s current salary cap situation, but there are rumors that his market is much cooler than he and his team anticipated.

The team surely still needs an edge rusher, and with so few left on the market, Gettleman might just be making his move today.