When the NY Giants placed the seldom-used ‘unrestricted free agent’ tender on Markus Golden, it seemed like a longshot that it would actually come to fruition.
Time flies, I guess even during a pandemic. The NY Giants made a smart move when they decided to slap the little know about tender on Markus Golden, the team’s leader in sacks in 2019.
Although it seems to me like it was more recent, that was all the way back on April 28. In a nutshell, when the NY Giants placed that tender on Golden he had until July 22nd to secure a free-agent contract with another club or else he could only play for Big Blue in 2020, at a maxed-out rate.
Still not that far removed from free agency, although I was happy when they used the tender, I didn’t take it very seriously as I thought Markus Golden would have to be signed by July. Yet, here we are 61 days later and Golden is still on the street.
It blows my mind that no team has signed Golden, although we don’t know the terms he’s asking for, pass-rushers with two double-digit sack seasons under their belt who are under 30 years old usually get snatched up rather quickly.
I won’t go over the ridiculous reasons why some poo-poo the ever-hustling Markus Golden, but the man has proven that he can flat out rush the passer and that he has recovered from his injury troubles.
Golden would earn 110% of his 2019 salary under this tender, which works out to about $5.2M. To me, that’s far below his true value, which I peg more around $10M-$12M,. The NY Giants defense still badly needs an infusion of pass-rushing talent, and now, we might all finally get what we’re asking for.
What are the chances he lands with the NY Giants now?
If you’d have asked me the day the tender was issued in late April, I would have pegged the chances of this tender coming through at about 10%. Now, I would say there’s as high as a 50% chance that Markus Golden actually ends up playing under this tender in 2020.
The reason I’m not all-in on it happening is that I have to believe there is a team out there that has offered Golden more than a one-year, $5.2M contract. How much more he’s been offered is going to be the question and there’s a solid chance any team that offered that contract back during free agency isn’t in the same cap position now.
Of course, we could see a sneaky team (cough: Patriots) sliding right in at 11:59 on July 22nd and offering him a one-year deal between $5.5-6M. Having the rest of the market know what the hard number Golden can play under with the NY Giants puts the team at a disadvantage, as there are likely teams that will be surprised to see he could be had for such a small investment (relative to his worth).
At that point, the NY Giants could be forced to ‘match’ that offer, or even make it a little sweeter. Luckily, it seems like Markus Golden is still on good terms with Big Blue, as Joe Judge mentioned at a virtual press conference back in May that he had spoken with the free agent, and spoke glowingly of him.
The NY Giants defense would be definitively better with Markus Golden on it and it’s starting to look like that might actually happen, something many NY Giants fans have been calling for from the beginning.