Less than a week after becoming the first team to elect to go with a 90-man training camp roster, the NY Giants backtracked Sunday by releasing eight players.
In what seemed like a very wise move at the time for the rebuilding NY Giants, the organization quickly chose to get as many players in the building for training camp/offseason activities as possible (90, like during a usual season) rather than cut down to 80 players like most other teams around the league did.
Well, for reasons unknown at the moment the NY Giants have now in fact chosen to cut/waive eight players to get down to the 80-man roster limit way before the August 12th deadline would have forced them to.
It appears as though a major sticking point in this decision for GM Dave Gettleman and head coach Joe Judge was not being able to do a full-team walkthrough at the end of each day’s practice and rather having to split up that walkthrough amongst split squads.
While the team had to have known this at the time of the decision, the brass clearly values getting the entire prospective team on the field all at once – even though they involve no contact, walkthroughs are actually very important and help out with functionality – and after a week or so of getting a look at the eight players cut, weighed that benefit was more important than further evaluation of said players.
The NY Giants released a statement via Twitter:
Roster moves: 8 players waived; Leonard Williams designated with non-football injury
— New York Giants (@Giants) August 2, 2020
📰: https://t.co/II698LDFwM pic.twitter.com/NLWXX0T9n1
In that statement, the organization released the eight names of the players that would be waived and how exactly else they will get down to the 80-man roster.
"Four of the released players have regular-season experience – running back Jon Hilliman, linebacker Chris Peace, safety Rashaan Gaulden and cornerback Shakial Taylor, who was awarded to the Giants off waivers on Tuesday. Also waived were four rookie or first-year players, including quarterback Case Cookus of Northern Iowa, fullback George Aston of Pittsburgh, and linebackers Oluwole Betiku, Jr. of Illinois and Dana Levine of Temple."
Runningback Jon Hilliman is probably the most well-known name on this list to NY Giants fans as he got some carries last year and even started a game at tailback against the New England Patriots.
Other than that, the eight-man list of cut players is a mix of young veterans who haven’t been able to stick and undrafted players with high upside.
I’ve written about Case Cookus and his potential future with the NY Giants many times, as well as what the possibility of hitting on a young UDFA pass rusher with high upsides like Oluwole Betiku or Dana Levine could potentially mean for a rebuilding team like the NY Giants.
Now, we’ll never know.
What else did Big Blue have to do to get their roster limit down to comply with the new limit without having to use split squads?