NY Giants free agency grades: Colt McCoy edition

The NY Giants went shopping in the bargain bin for a backup quarterback, which actually makes a lot of sense considering the team’s current overall state.

I, for one, thought the NY Giants would end up investing more than the $1.5M on a backup quarterback than they ended up spending on veteran Colt McCoy. However, if we weren’t going to make a solid investment, coming away with a crafty veteran for almost a minimum salary was the correct course of action.

Colt McCoy is not – and may never have been – a guy that’s going to come in and will his NFL team to victories. After a standout career at Texas, he’s mostly been relegated to backup duties during his NFL career. When he has been asked to play his results have been mediocre overall but not near as bad as we see with some other backup QB’s.

One major point here is that McCoy has never played with a skill group like the NY Giants currently have. Saquon Barkley alone is probably the best player he’s ever played with on offense and it’s conceivable to think should the Giants be competing in 2020 and Daniel Jones goes down, McCoy could go about .500 in his absence.

That’s all we’re looking for after investing so much in Daniel Jones in the 2019 draft. This team has many other pressing needs, and in hindsight, spending millions on a backup QB was probably never the way to go.

Hopefully, McCoy won’t ever be asked to start for Big Blue. While it shouldn’t be a prerequisite to signing a vet QB, McCoy is a high character guy that will have a solid impact on DJ. Anything to get the journeyman or all journeymen, Alex Tanney, off of this roster is a good move in my book.

That’s all we can ask for with such a minimal investment.