James Bradberry's future still up in the air with Giants
Giants cornerback James Bradberry at minicamp at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center on June 10, 2021. Credit: Brad Penner
Joe Schoen said the Giants have “contingency plans” to keep cornerback James Bradberry on the roster, but the primary objective remains to get him and his almost crippling salary cap hit off it.
Not that any of it is personal.
“I like the kid, I like the skill set, it’s just the situation we’re in from a financial standpoint, it is what it is,” the general manager said of Bradberry, who is due to count $21.86 million against the cap this season, the last one on his contract.
Schoen said the Giants have received calls from other teams interested in trading for Bradberry, but so far a deal has not been completed. The upcoming draft would figure to spur some of those conversations to the next level of seriousness. With two top cornerbacks potentially available to them with either their fifth or seventh selections next Thursday in Cincinnati’s Sauce Gardner and LSU’s Derek Stingley Jr., it would certainly behoove the Giants to know Bradberry’s fate for certain before making any picks.
Bradberry has not attended any of the Giants’ offseason workouts while he waits for his future to be decided.
“I’ve had great conversations with James Bradberry’s representatives and I’ve talked to James,” Schoen said. “He can still play in this league, he’s still a starting corner… At the end of the day you have to do what is best for the New York Giants.”
Even if that means parting ways with one of the top returning players.
“James Bradberry is a great person, a good player,” Schoen said.
He just happens to be one with a terrible contract.
Notes & quotes: Schoen said he has had conversations but “no hard offers” from teams “fishing around” about the availability of the Giants’ fifth and seventh picks in the upcoming draft. He said he expects those calls to ramp up next week as the draft gets closer. While the Giants would be willing to trade back to gain more picks, Schoen said he’d also be “perfectly fine” selecting where he is currently slotted … DL Leonard Williams said he has been watching how Calais Campbell was used by the Ravens to get a better understanding of what his role in Don “Wink” Martindale’s defense will be. Martindale is the former defensive coordinator of the Ravens … Coach Brian Daboll said he doesn’t have a depth chart at this point in the offseason but instead has a “rep chart” to get everyone enough work. He also said the goal of this minicamp is just to see the players moving on the field and applying some of the things they have been taught in the two previous weeks of the offseason program. “We're throwing a lot at them,” he said. “Some of the stuff is going to stick on the wall, a lot of it is going to fall off.”
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.
