The NY Giants face a difficult decision when it comes to whether or not to retain kicker Aldrick Rosas despite his legal troubles – and play – for 2020.
Much like the NY Giants’ issue with DeAndre Baker, the team is faced with a very tough call on whether or not they should retain talented kicker, but two-time DUI (once with NY Giants) offender, Aldrick Rosas.
Now, you might be thinking a DUI is a far cry from what DeAndre Baker is accused of, and you’d be right. Despite that, a kicker doesn’t have the same type of “juice” on an NFL team as a young cornerback drafted in the first round, while Rosas appears to be dead guilty and Baker’s legal case is very much up in the air and could take a while to conclude — two positive factors for the cornerback.
So, in all reality, Rosas could lose his job for committing a far less worse crime than Baker (if he is guilty). Would that be fair? I guess that’s up to you, but this is the NFL.
That’s where this thing gets interesting, as it gives rookie head coach, Joe Judge, another early test that his players will be watching very closely — you can bet on that.
At first glance, the two might not seem to be intertwined, but you better believe they are. Players are likely very concerned for their own selves should they get into their own bit of trouble in the future, and they’re going to be more than curious to see how Judge deals with these two different players.
To that end, Joe Judge has instituted a “competition everywhere” and “all players will be treated equal” culture from the moment he walked in the door to be the head coach of the NY Giants.
So, how would he look cutting a kicker for a DUI and allowing a more important player stick around despite much more (alledged) serious charges? To some players, probably not great.
Others may understand the nature of the game, no matter how much a coach spews that every player is treated equally.
Where it gets tricky with Rosas is that he was already heading into a make-it or break-it year with the team in 2020, so Judge could justify it by making it a combination of the two things (arrest, bad play).
You may also be thinking, ‘Hey, DeAndre Baker played bad last year too’, and again, you’d be right.
But there’s different levels and values to every player on the team whether Judge wants to admit it publically, you can bet he understands that necessary evil.
For the record, I’m not saying he doesn’t believe all he’s said about how his team’s culture will operate, but not every situation is the same and I believe he’s smart enough to realize it.
So, should the NY Giants keep him?
I’ve been a pretty stern defender of Aldrick Rosas during my time here, so in short, yes, I would like to see the NY Giants hang on to Rosas for 2020 regardless of how his legal issues play out (should there be no more, of course).
As I pointed out in a recent article, the kicker market is as barren as barren gets, so replacing Rosas at this point with a kicker even near his level would be almost impossible.
I also think we can all agree a DUI – while serious and a crime that could impact other people in a horrific way – is more of an understood and common crime that many people have gone through in their lives.
So while his three-year career stats read out to an alternating tornado of inconsistency — 2017: mediocre, 2018: All-Pro, 2019: mediocre, there are few – if any – options that would come close to his peak in 2018, which we were all hoping he’d return to.
The most important two words in that last paragraph were “All-Pro”. Some fans might not know that the All-Pro team is a far step above making the Pro Bowl, as no one withdraws due to injury (it’s just a paper team), and far fewer players make it (in Rosas’ case, only two kickers made it that year – one each for the 1st and 2nd All-Pro teams).
There are also the issues of Rosas having signed a restricted free agent tender, that while it will pay him well, contains no guaranteed money and can be pulled at any time.
In other words, the organization doesn’t have to make a quick decision here if they don’t want to from a money perspective.
That factor hurts Rosas in the long run, as if the team is able to find a suitable kicker sometime this summer (trades are always an option), the team would have no financial incentive to keep him as it wouldn’t have a negative impact on their books, despite the fact that he’ll be getting paid top-end kicker money if he does play in 2020.
Finding a kicker is hard enough, finding a kicker that has an All-Pro nod under his belt before the age of 25 is a whole ‘nother ball game.
I mean, in that year, Rosas managed to convert a staggering 97% of his field goals (on a whopping 33 attempts) — that type of production and potential doesn’t grow on trees, or anywhere, for that matter.
There are plenty of solid kickers around the NFL that while they do a decent job, could never dream of putting up those types of numbers, even for one season, and the means something here.
My quick theory on why Rosas regressed from that All-Pro level in 2019 was that he just didn’t get enough chances to show what he can do, and his bad just happened to pop out in the few chances he did get to kick field goals.
He only had 17 filed goal attempts all year (missing 5 of them for a very mediocre 70%), so you could make the argument he really only made 5 mistakes in 16.
Further, he was getting even fewer opportunities in the beginning of the season, causing in-game rust to build and a couple of missed field goals stand out that much more due to them bringing down his percentage.
Now, the missing of 5 extra points there is no defending, and that’s probably the most damning aspect of Rosas’ football resume at this point.
Even though he does have another DUI on his record before his time with the NY Giants, I think the right approach here would be for the team to stand by their player and get him some help — outpatient rehab, self-help coach, whatever.
With how late we are in the offseason, being past the draft, and the meaningful portion of the offseason, cutting Rosas could have a devastatingly negative effect on the 2020 NY Giants.
We could also be giving up on a kicker that will be quickly snatched up and could easily turn his life around and get back to that All-Pro level for another team.
I’d like to think many of us don’t want those things to happen.