Logan Ryan, Giants agree on 1-year deal as defensive back from New Jersey returning home
Logan Ryan celebrates with his Titans teammates after an interception against the New England Patriots on Jan. 4, 2019. Credit: AP/Logan Bowles
After months of speculation, weeks of rumors, days of glaring need, and a few hours of final negotiations, veteran defensive back Logan Ryan summed it up with just three words in a social media post.
“I’m coming home!!” he posted on Monday afternoon.
As if there was ever any real doubt. The Giants always seemed like the most logical landing spot for Ryan, and on Monday he agreed to a one-year contract with the team from his home state of New Jersey. NFL Network reported it was a $7.5 million deal and it came just one day after Ryan changed agents to help facilitate the agreement.
Ryan had been on the Giants’ radar – and they on his – for most of the offseason. Not only does he have deep roots in the area, having grown up here and played collegiately at Rutgers, but he also has a firm understanding of the type of culture Joe Judge is attempting to import to the Giants. Ryan and Judge were together with the Patriots from 2013-16, Ryan’s first four years in the NFL. They won two Super Bowls together during that time.
In a league where moves that make the most sense don’t always come to fruition, this one has.
Ryan signs on at a time when the Giants need experience and playmakers in their secondary. The team is without two of its potential starting cornerbacks with DeAndre Baker on the commissioner’s exempt list and Sam Beal having opted out, and last week rookie safety and second-round pick Xavier McKinney was lost for the foreseeable future with a fractured foot that required surgery. That left the Giants attempting to keep the back end of their defense afloat with a number of rookie and unproven veteran spare parts.
Now they have a legitimate NFL star at their disposal, and they can use him to fill a multitude of roles in the secondary. Ryan is coming off a season in which he had career-highs in tackles (113), sacks (4.5), pass deflections (18) and forced fumbles (4) for the Titans. He also had four interceptions. At 29 he is not a shutdown cornerback, but his skill set should fit nicely with the hodgepodge-by-design schemes that defensive coordinator Patrick Graham – who also has Patriots blood in his veins – is installing.
Ryan, Jabrill Peppers and Julian Love will give the Giants a versatile triumvirate of safeties who can all play at the line of scrimmage, work in coverage, or man the deep part of the field.
While the Giants have been enamored by Ryan for some time and in discussion with him and his previous agents since the spring when he became a free agent, there was some hesitation to bring in a veteran to a team that is being assembled for the long haul rather than in a win-now mode. Ryan’s price tag dropping with the season approaching helped ease those concerns, as did the additional benefit of his leadership skills.
“It’s important to not go ahead and build your entire roster based on where it is right now,” Judge said. “It’s important to look long term. Where are they going to be Week 6, Week 8, Week 10? How is each individual going to progress and what do we think our unit is going to look like by the end of the year? Dealing with young players is something you always have to take into consideration.”
No longer as much of one.
Ryan will have to go through COVID-19 testing and pass a physical. It’s unlikely he will be on the field for the Giants before they hold their final practice of the preseason, a scrimmage-like workout scheduled for Thursday.
But the following week, as the Giants begin to prepare to face the Steelers in earnest, they’ll have Ryan in the fold, wearing the uniform of his hometown team.
Just as it was always meant to be.
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.
