The NY Giants continued to shake up the back-end of their roster by moving on from quarterback Cooper Rush, who came over to NYG with Jason Garrett from Dallas this offseason.
The NY Giants have parted ways with another ‘Jason Garrett guy’ in quarterback Cooper Rush on Tuesday, just hours after cutting another player that spent years with Garrett in Dallas in running back Rod Smith.
I’m a bit surprised by the move as I thought Cooper Rush could have potentially been a long-term answer at the backup quarterback position after showing signs of potential when he lit up the preseason for the Dallas Cowboys in what were the only chances he had to show what he could do being stuck behind star QB Dak Prescott.
Rush signed on with the Cowboys after going undrafted in the 2017 NFL Draft and wasn’t expected to be much more than a training camp arm before going on that epic preseason run.
During that run, Rush completed 71% of his passes for 398 yards, 6 TD’s and 0 interceptions. Due to those results, he earned himself a spot on the Dallas roster and by Week 6 he started dressing for games after beating out veteran signal-caller Kellen Moore (who is now Dallas’ offensive coordinator) for the #2 job which he ended up holding down during the remainder of his three-year career with the Cowboys.
After initially signing on to remain with Dallas for the 2020 season via a one-year, $2.1M RFA tender, showing that the Cowboys still considered a valuable asset.
In the end, the new regime ended up jumping at the chance to add veteran Andy Dalton and released Rush to waivers.
Jason Garrett and the NY Giants immediately made a move on Rush by claiming him off waivers in May and restructured his contract down to a reasonable $1.2M.
By releasing him, the NY Giants will incur a 150K dead cap hit for the 2020 season — nothing to be up in arms about.
Will the NY Giants add another quarterback?
You would have to think the NY Giants will quickly look to add another quarterback to the roster as right now the team only has Daniel Jones and Colt McCoy on the roster. In fact, it’s likely that they already have one in mind and that’s the reason they decided to move on from Rush.
One has to wonder if this move is almost a punishment from Joe Judge to Jason Garrett of sorts, as he has not gotten off to a great start as the offensive coordinator for the NY Giants, to say the least. Big Blue currently ranks 31st in points scored and total yards on offense, so it’s possible the brass is losing faith in the former Cowboys coach already.
Many believed the Jason Garrett signing was more of a John Mara move, even though Judge spoke glowingly of the long-time head coach and displayed high character and a low ego by signing off on adding an experienced coach to his staff that would help him make the transition to his new role.
We’ll keep you posted should the NY Giants make a move at quarterback today or in the near future as there is no way the team moves forward with just two QB’s on its roster.
As long as the team doesn’t decide to bring back Alex Tanney, I’ll pretty much be good with whoever they choose to bring on to develop on the practice squad.