New York Giants: GM Reese Being Questionably Thrifty in NFL Free Agency

The New York Giants have had a very uneventful and unimpressive free agency so far. They entered with several players who needed to be re-signed, namely Ahmad Bradshaw, Kevin Boss, Mathias Kiwinuka, Steve Smith and Barry Cofield.

They managed to re-sign two of them, along with an extended list of no-names and draft picks. They did not, however, re-sign Cofield and Boss. They have an offer still on the table for Steve Smith and all fans are hopeful that he, too, does not get away. These signings were made possible in part by two factors.

One, Brandon Jacobs' restructured deal that put the team under the cap and; two, the release of a few long-time players like Shaun O'Hara and Rich Seubert. They did not decide to try to re-sign Cofield. Neither did they decide to match or raise their original offer to Kevin Boss, thereby allowing Oakland to steal him away.

In a time when this team started free agency over the cap, it was necessary to have to decide who was worth keeping and who was worth losing. It's almost like a person shopping for a car. Instead of getting a pre-owned luxury model like a Mercedes-Benz, Giants GM Jerry Reese has chosen to shop for a used Kia.

One can understand the pressure Reese is under to make such decisions—but to choose such low-cost, low-potential options in place of high-cost, high-potential players who are established and familiar with the system and city is, at best, a questionable decision in and of itself. What is his thinking here? What does he hope to accomplish?

One school of thought that is developing is that he simply wants to rebuild and get younger. If that were true, though, why would he let an explosive tight end like Boss get away when he is entering his prime? If that were true, why would he have signed David Carr? That is most likely not the scenario.

The more likely scenario is that he does not know how to shop effectively on a budget. That would explain signing players like Mark Clayton, Ben Patrick, Andre Brown and Stacy Andrews, among several others with little value.

The finances are certainly to blame here; but it's how a GM deals with those finances that makes or breaks a team.

I do not believe the Giants are in a panic mode, but for the upcoming season, this team may look less like the custom model Lamborghini that we expect consistently and more like a broken-down station wagon that's leaking oil and takes several minutes to start up. Right now, Jerry Reese has the keys and he intends to keep trying to look for a battery jump.