NY Giants' Most Urgent, Future Roster Need ID'ed in New Analysis

 Giants Linebackers: A Tale of Two Units  

Ballentine didn’t make it clear if he was referencing the entire linebacker group (inside and outside) or just one of the two. 

Based on his analysis, it appears that he meant the outside linebackers, as he noted, “The team’s young core shows promise, but they could use a few more impactful players at the position.”

The outside linebacking trio of Kayvon Thibodeaux, Brian Burns, and Abdul Carter is about as good as it gets. Toss in Chauncey Golston as the fourth man in the group, and well, when was the last time the Giants had this deep of an outside linebacker group capable of doing some significant harassing of opposing quarterbacks?

Inside linebacker, though, is the more glaring need in our opinion.   The two starters, Bobby Okereke and Micah McFadden, are not locked in for the long term. 

Okereke is signed through 2026, but the last of his guaranteed money ends this year. If the Giants want to move on from him after this season, they would save $9 million on their cap and have a ready-made fill-in in Darius Muasau.

McFadden, meanwhile, is set to hit free agency next year barring a contract extension. The Giants like McFadden, who’s one of the biggest underrated players on the team.

Could they be thinking of trying to retain McFadden, who shouldn’t cost them nearly as much as Okereke, and move into a different direction via the draft?

That’s a possibility that can’t be ruled out, but at the end of the day, it’s going to depend on how Okereke does this year.

Although he finished with 93 tackles last season, it was an off-year for him as, in addition to coming out of the gate slowly, he dealt with a season-ending back injury.

Okereke is still a very good player. That said, according to Over the Cap, New York is projected as of this writing to have $11.164 million in cap space, which isn’t going to be enough to do much with in free agency.

Okereke’s contract might force Schoen to move off of Okereke and seek a less expensive option at an underrated position that right now, outside of Muasau, doesn’t have any young talent in development.