Desperate times lead to desperate measures … but, this desperate?
The New York Giants’ pursuit quarterback Matthew Stafford ended predictably on Friday, with Stafford getting the bag — as the kids say — to return to the Los Angeles Rams.
So, what’s next for the Giants in their effort to find somebody other than Tommy DeVito to play quarterback in 2025, and perhaps save the jobs of GM Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll?
I don’t know the answer, but I do know who the answer can’t be:
Aaron Rodgers.
Dianna Russini of The Athletic reported on Friday that the Giants were “shifting their interest” to Rodgers. Adam Schefter reported that the Giants “are investigating all veteran quarterback options…..including Aaron Rodgers.”
Schefter’s information is almost exactly the same as what I was told by a Giants source, which was that the Giants were “doing their homework on all options.”
I took that to mean Rodgers had not been ruled out, but that he wasn’t at the front of the line, either.
Maybe that has changed. Let’s hope not.
Signing Rodgers would be a desperation play by Schoen and Daboll. It would be the kind of short-sighted, self-preservation ‘Hail Mary’ that Schoen promised not to make this offseason despite understanding fully the kind of heat he would be under to field a better product in 2025.
More importantly, a move for the egotistical, spotlight-seeking, shell of the quarterback he once was 41-year-old Rodgers would almost certainly fail spectacularly. And get Schoen and Daboll fired.
Can you imagine the Giants scooping up the leftovers of the Little Brother New York Jets? Trying to rescue their franchise by taking the same path that was a miserable failure for the last two years, only with an older, less healthy, less talented, more desperate to hook on somewhere Rodgers? The Giants had a front-row seat to the disaster that was Rodgers to the Jets. It is hard to fathom they would be foolish enough to try the same thing.
Whether the Giants were right or wrong to allow Saquon Barkley to leave, they have spent the last year being laughed at by the NFL world at large because of how that turned out. And, because of the process shown on ‘Hard Knocks’ that has led every other NFL team to refuse to do the offseason version of the show.
Signing Rodgers would lead to John Mara’s once-proud, four-time Super Bowl-winning franchise spending another season being laughed at.
Jets fans are already laughing at the folly of the Giants possibly repeating their mistake.
Writing for ‘the jet press,’ Justin Fried said the Giants “couldn’t be a more hilarious” suitor for Rodgers.
The New York Giants, fresh off watching their crosstown rivals implode in the Rodgers experiment, are now reportedly eyeing the very same quarterback — only two years older and a little over a year removed from suffering a torn Achilles …
Rodgers is older, has suffered a torn Achilles, and is nowhere near the caliber of player the Jets believed they were landing in 2023. The Giants have seen the worst of Rodgers, and evidently, that hasn’t affected their stance.
Logic suggests this move would be a disaster for the Giants.
Fried did, though, acknowledge that because it was the Jets he was writing about “the wrath of the football gods” might actually see this move work out for the Giants.
Not likely.
“We need better play out of the position” Schoen said on Tuesday at the Combine.
That much is clearly true. Maybe Rodgers can give the Giants better play than Daniel Jones did. At this stage of their careers, though, I’m not even sure that will be the case. Rodgers may still possess more arm talent than Jones, but with his advancing age and decreasing mobility he is a sitting duck for pass rushers. Jones, at least, could use his legs to buy time and attempt to make a play.
The Giants have dealt with some big personalities over the years, but have never intentionally brought the circus to town. That is what bringing Rodgers to town, or actually keeping him in town, would be doing. Rodgers would lug ‘The Pat McAfee Show,’ darkness retreats and probably some of his over-the-hill buddies to the Giants with him.
The circus would most definitely be in town.
Ten years ago that was probably worth putting up with. Now. No, thanks.
What is the Giants’ best move?
Doing what they have to do, which probably means trading up to No. 1 in the 2025 NFL Draft, to select Cam Ward.
I started banging that drum a week or so ago, and with Stafford now off the market I am going to keep banging it.
There is no needle-moving, job-saving, guaranteed to save the franchise option in free agency.
Not this version of Rodgers. Not Sam Darnold, which would be taking the Jones risk all over again. Not Derek Carr if the New Orleans Saints cut him loose. Not Justin Fields, Russell Wilson, Jameis Winston, Mac Jones, Zach Wilson, Kirk Cousins or anyone else.
Every quarterback available, aside from maybe Darnold, would be little more than a bridge or placeholder option. In my view, signing one of those guys and drafting a Will Howard/Kyle McCord/Tyler Shough somewhere in the middle of the draft is not going to turn the franchise around, and might not be enough to keep Schoen and Daboll employed beyond 2025. It might still necessitate, probably does still necessitate, using a first-round pick at quarterback.
The Giants need a big swing. And, having been rebuffed in their efforts to get Stafford, the big swing that remains possible is getting the best quarterback in the 2025 draft class. That’s Ward.
We can argue all day about where Ward would rank had he been in last year’s quarterback class, where six were taken in the top 12 picks. That doesn’t matter. We are in the now. The need is now. By keeping Schoen and Daboll for a fourth year and more or less telling them they won’t get a fifth unless things improve dramatically, ownership made it clear the time for the big swing is now.
I find it credible when someone as knowledgeable and well-respected as Greg Cosell tells me “I think Ward’s worthy of a No. 1 pick in the draft.”
When Kevin Clark of ESPN says of a Ward/Giants pairing “I think he’s the guy that saves that franchise” that gets my attention.
The big swing for Ward is the Giants’ best option. Far better than hoping for the broken down shell of Aaron Rodgers to find the Fountain of Youth.
