NY Giants swoop in and sign best DB on the market

Logan Ryan waited all offseason for the right opportunity — something he clearly thinks he’s found with the NY Giants in 2020.

Well, you can bet that NY Giants nation is extremely happy today, as most of the fanbase has been campaigning hard for Big Blue to sign veteran defensive back Logan Ryan all offseason long.

I’ve cautioned restraint when discussing the idea of bringing in the 29-year-old, versatile defensive back due to the fact that the NY Giants don’t figure to be legit competitors in 2020 so throwing $10M+ at a guy to just become marginally better didn’t make much sense to me for a rebuilding team.

However, after the offseason the NY Giants secondary has incurred, it’s hard for me to argue with anyone who feels this is the right way to go. Dave Gettleman officially landed Logan Ryan for $7.5M over one year, which is a lot easier to swallow than $10M to me.

Also, there’s a chance that some of that money could be in the form of incentives which would make me feel even better about the terms.

Art Stapleton of North Jersey Sports was all over the recent possibility of the NY Giants getting back in on Ryan after he switched agents in recent days.

Via Twitter:

Even though I’ve advocated for bringing in mostly only younger players and staying away from high-priced veterans, it actually might have been nice to lock up Ryan for more than one year, as it’d signify a move with more of an eye towards the future instead of just thinking about the upcoming year which has burned us in recent years.

Neverthless, the team will have a solid amount of cap space next year compared to the rest of the league, so if Ryan impressess they shouldn’t have a problem retaining the New Jersey native who has played under Joe Judge in the past.

As things stand, if the front office stands pat from here on out the team will have enough to roll over into next year to cover Nate Solder’s albatross of a contract that was pushed back a year after he opted out due to (legitimate) COVID-19 concerns.

Many NY giants fans have been confused and think that he forfeited his contract; that is simply not the case. Instead, he got a small lump sum of money (NFL wise) to opt-out of the 2020 season while his contract just got pushed back a year.

One thing I wouldn’t mind Gettleman doing at this point is doubling down on secondary help in the form of a former NY Giants cornerback. If we’re going to bring in one veteran to sure things up, might as well bring two, especially when you consider that Prince Amukamara only signed for $1M — and that was before he was cut, his value might be even lower now.

How will this signing affect the NY Giants’ defensive alignment?

As things stand right now, I’m not sure anyone could give you an intelligent answer in that regard. In my opinion, Logan Ryan’s is at his best working out of the slot, although he did spend almost half of his snaps during his stellar 2019 campaign playing outside corner.

If he could handle that #2CB job, that would be ideal in my mind as Julian Love could man free safety while rookie Darnay Holmes can do what he does best out of the slot.

At the same time, new defensive coordinator Patrick Graham is famous for using three-safety sets and has often spoken about how he felt this NY Giants defense had the players to utilize such a concept.

That could still be in the cards, especially if Corey Ballentine shows he can be productive as a boundary cornerback.

Again, if Gettleman were to somehow land Prince Amukamara, the NY Giants might actually have a legitimate secondary which didn’t seem possible as recently as a week ago when stud rookie Xavier McKinney went down after a litany of other depressing developments among the team’s young DB’s.

At the very least, Logan Ryan is going to bring a ballhawk element to the secondary that it seems to be missing at the moment. In 2019, Ryan earned his way onto the NFL Network’s ‘Top 100 Players of 2019’ list by having a nose for the football and making numerous plus plays.

Ryan was a menace when it came to blitzing and applying pressure from the secondary as the vet racked up 4.5 sacks and 8 QB hits; he also chipped in 4 tackles-for-loss, 4 forced fumbles, and 4 interceptions in one of the most jam-packed seasonal statlines you’ll ever see.

Oh, he also had 113 tackles, including 73 solo, to lead all safeties in 2019.

We’ll see if the Giants brass makes another move to further solidify the secondary in the days to come, with the roster cut down day being a big one for Gettleman and company as they’ll have one of the top waiver priorities.

GMENHQ official signing grade: B