INDIANAPOLIS – Giants GM Joe Schoen has a lot more internal free agent business to conduct at the NFL Combine than just Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley.
Here were some of his Tuesday comments on other players and priorities:
On safety Julian Love, an unrestricted free agent: “I talked to [agent] Drew [Rosenhaus] at the Senior Bowl. We’re gonna circle back up here. He’s on my schedule late in the week. We’ll see. I think I saw a couple other safeties may be released so we’ll see what that market looks like and whether there’s gonna be a surplus or not and where his value falls. But I love Julian.”
On defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, entering his fifth-year option: “Dexter, Joel Segal’s his agent, we’ve had conversations with him. That’s a little bit trickier, the DT market, when you look at the gap between the highest paid and the next guy. But Dexter’s a great leader, great player, did a good job for us this year. So he’s definitely somebody we’ll talk to and would like to have him here for a long time.”
On defensive lineman Leonard Williams, who carries a $32.2 million cap hit in 2023: “He’s another guy we got a meeting scheduled [for] later this week. You guys did a good job trying to get him to take a pay cut. Leo’s still a good player. It’s not a position where we’re very deep. So we’ve got some ideas in mind where we could open up some money. That’s something we’ll work on when we meet.”
“I still think when he’s healthy he’s a good player in the league. You look at the draft the last few years the defensive tackles aren’t producing like they have in the past. So it’s becoming harder and harder to find those guys. We want to be solid up front on both sides of the ball. Leonard, I know his number still is what it is, but we think he plays at a high level.”
On offensive lineman Nick Gates, an unrestricted free agent: “Another guy we’ve had conversations with him before the Combine in terms of trying to bring him back. Another agency we’re gonna meet with this week, but we’ve already had talks with him.”
On center Jon Feliciano, an unrestricted free agent: “He’s a guy we’re gonna meet with this week too. We had Feliciano in Buffalo with us, and it’s not just on the field with some of these guys. It’s the leadership in the locker room and within their position group that you really gotta make sure you don’t let a lot of leadership walk out of the building, and that’s gonna be a concerted effort for some of these guys. Maybe they’re backups, starters, you wanna definitely be able to retain some of our leadership.”
On defensive end Jihad Ward, an unrestricted free agent and another leader referenced by Schoen: “He’s a unique personality and I love him and he provided some leadership for those guys. He was important for a lot of Kayvon’s growth.”
On left tackle Andrew Thomas and safety Xavier McKinney, who are both eligible for extensions for the first time: “Yeah, we’ve got Andrew for a little bit longer because of the fifth-year option and we’ll most likely exercise that [chuckles, because it’s obvious]. And Xavier just switched agents. So we had dealt with his previous agent before going through the deal that had happened over the bye week, and I’m meeting with his new agent this week. So we’re gonna stay in contact with those guys. We got more pressing needs right now, but those are guys that definitely we’ll consider down the road.”
On whether he’s eyeing a wide receiver in the draft: “I know receiver keeps coming up, but we were just talking about D-line depth or inside linebacker. We have a lot of needs. So we’re still taking the best player available wherever we are. We’ll continue to look, continue to build. Wel’l be patient when value matches up to where the player is, make the sound decisions and continue to build.”
More on the wide receiver need: “We had a good season. We still have several holes on both sides of the ball. We still have a ways to go and several holes to fill. So I understand there’s somewhat of an obsession with the receiver, but we still have to build a team. That’s an important position. I get that. But the value has to match up and we still have several other holes we need to fill. In 2024 you gotta look down the road, who’s up next year, what’s coming down the pipeline as you build a team, not just in 2023 but down the road.”
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