Giants make no more deals as trade deadline passes
Two members of the Giants’ secondary spent part of Tuesday waiting to hear if they would continue to be members of the Giants’ secondary.
Cornerback Janoris Jenkins and safety Landon Collins were both well aware that their names were being discussed in possible trades. And a few hours before the 4 p.m. deadline — which came and went, surprisingly enough, without any Giants swaps — each had a very different reaction to that potential outcome.
Jenkins seemed open to a departure.
“If they let me go, they let me go,” he said. “It is what it is.”
He also noted that most defenses are the same and most NFL players know each other so getting acclimated on a new team would not be a problem.
“I play football to play football,” Jenkins said. “If they trade me, bro, they trade me. I don’t care. It is what is. If they are going to keep me they are going to keep me. Business is business. On to the next team.”
As for going from the 1-7 Giants to a contending team, he said: “Hey, I just got put in a nice position, that’s it. If I go somewhere that’s 6-1, I’m just in a nice position.”
Collins, meanwhile, seemed to be taking the possibility more personally.
“I do a lot for the team, the organization,” Collins said. “I was a draft pick here. Yeah, it’s very surprising [to hear the rumors].”
Collins said that he had hoped to remain with the Giants throughout his career.
“Wherever I started, that’s kind of where I want to finish at,” he said. “I mean, once I’m like 8 or 10 years in and it’s time for me to give it up to let them bring some new cats in. But right now I’m expecting to stay here.”
Still, when Collins was on the field on Tuesday morning, the idea that it could have been his last time in a Giants uniform was with him.
“I practiced with it on my mind, yeah, but I didn’t show it when I went on the field,” he said.
For selling teams like the Giants, the real trade deadline isn’t until April 25, 2019. That’s when the next NFL draft opens up and when the benefits of these deals and those that will take place in the offseason will start to come into focus. Just because the Giants didn’t trade someone before Tuesday does not mean they are part of the organization’s plans beyond this season.
The Giants already traded two defensive starters in Eli Apple and Damon Harrison last week. The possibility of more moves had many wondering on Tuesday if they might be next. Or, possibly worse, how they would recover from another significant loss in personnel.
“Depends on what guy gets traded,” Collins said, hypothetically naming himself, Jenkins or linebacker Olivier Vernon, the three most talked-about trade targets on the Giants’ roster. “It just depends on the guy and how we’re using him within our defense. Every guy is very, very important to our defense. At the end of the day, we need every guy… You’re replacing a guy with a lot of knowledge on the field, experience, game playing, playmaker. It can make a major punch depending on how it goes for the defense.”
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
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