Alec Ogletree

The NFL trade deadline came and went yesterday, and the New York Giants didn’t make any moves, choosing to leave their recent transactions at just the earlier crosstown trade for Leonard Williams. The team couldn’t find deals for Janoris Jenkins, Nate Solder, or Alec Ogletree despite all three players having been, according to Ian Rapoport, potentially on the trading block.

That leaves the Giants in an awkward situation going into the second half of the season.

The fact of the matter is, it’s hard to sweep the trade rumors under the rug now that the deadline is past and act like they never happened in the first place. Jenkins has long been rumored to be on the trading block for the Giants and those rumors hit their peak intensity this week, with the deadline approaching.

The expectation was that Jenkins would end up traded. There were plenty of articles about potential destinations, rumors that the Giants could pull the trigger on a move, and that the Giants were actively shopping the player. To a lesser extent, one could also say that the same is true for a player like Alec Ogletree or Nate Solder, both of whom were named as being shopped by the team.

Now, the deadline is passed and no deals were made for any of the trio. But just like Eli Manning’s days as the starting quarterback were numbered once the team took Daniel Jones, despite their public commitments to Manning, their days with the Giants might still be numbered after the Giants made the decision to take these players out of their long term plans.

Sure, Jenkins and the others still have at least half a season left with the team, maybe more, but it’s hard to see them staying for too long around a team that attempted to shop them for a move – Jenkins has been in this position for a while now and it doesn’t seem that he remains in the team’s plans for the future, and it’s clear that the Nate Solder experiment hasn’t worked out if the Giants were open to moving their big name addition this early on in his career with the team.

The question for the rest of the season is whether or not the Giants will get the best performances out of this group of players after they’ve already shown that they aren’t committed to keeping them. It’s like a couple staying together when everyone assumed they would break up. Will they be able to put the past in the past and move forward from here? The answer isn’t clear.

Jenkins, Ogletree, and Solder are all players that could be considered part of the Giants’ core at the beginning of the season, but it looks like more rebuilding is in store after this season based on the way things went during the first half of this one.

The team will have to assemble the core that they’ve been looking for during the past couple of seasons in the near future, through a combination of drafting and trading, as it’s clear that as of now, they haven’t gotten far enough in their rebuild to say that they have a firm one.

Until then, however, they’re stuck in a strange spot – left to limp through the rest of the season with a two win record and a few veteran starters that they’ve all but made clear that they wouldn’t mind walking away from in a trade. Not the best situation. For either the Giants or the players involved.

There was much anticipation in the NFL this week surrounding today’s official trade deadline for the 2019 season. After 4:00 p.m. today, teams are no longer allowed to make trades until the season is over.

The New York Giants did strike a deal yesterday to acquire now-former Jets defensive lineman Leonard Williams. This trade was a surprise, but it was not surprising to hear shortly after that the Giants were looking to trade away a few players, too. 

The Giants were considering trading away three veteran players: Janoris Jenkins, Nate Solder, and Alec Ogletree. However, these trades never came to fruition, as the NFL as a whole was pretty inactive leading up to today’s deadline.

Why The Giants Kept Solder, Jenkins, And Ogletree

The New York Giants were expected to make some sort of trade today in order to recuperate draft capital that they lost after trading for Leonard Williams. The Giants gave up a 2020 3rd-round pick and a 2021 5th-round pick. Fans thought New York would be able to get these picks back by trading away these players. But maybe fans overestimated the worth of Solder, Ogletree, and Jenkins.

Nate Solder

Nate Solder was an interesting name to see pop up in trade rumors. The veteran tackle was signed by New York the last offseason to a record-breaking contract in order to bandage their left tackle position. Seeing the Giants noncommittal on Solder’s future with the team was surprising, but understandable.

Solder has allowed seven sacks and 33 pressures through eight weeks, according to Pro Football Focus. The 31-year-old has struggled so far this season but did have a trade market this week. Sources say the Cleveland Browns were interested. But New York’s desire to part with Solder was not high enough to match the thought market of interest. If the Giants did trade Nate Solder, it would not have been for enough to risk stunting Daniel Jones’s progression behind a backup tackle.

Alec Ogletree

Realistically, it would have been difficult for the Giants to find a trade partner for Alec Ogletree. Alec has struggled with injuries and lackluster performances over the past two seasons. He is a borderline starter at this point, so it would be difficult to understand why any team would trade for him.

Especially when considering what Ogletree is being paid this season. Art Stapleton of USA Today pointed out that Ogletree’s contract kept teams unattracted. Ogletree is due for over $10 million in salary cap each of the next two seasons. That is a tough commitment for any team to make to a struggling player.

Janoris Jenkins

Janoris Jenkins was definitely the Giants’ most tradeable asset of the three. But still, Jenkins remains a member of the Giants. There was not a market for Jenkins today and not exactly a big market for cornerbacks in general. More talented cornerbacks had their names brought up in trade discussions (Darius Slay, Chris Harris Jr.) but only one cornerback, Aqib Talib, was dealt.

The Giants were not able to find a trade partner for Jenkins, though it is unclear to what extent the Giants went to trade him. But now that we know Janoris is here till the end of the year, the Giants have an interesting decision to make in the 2020 offseason. Should they keep Jenkins around or cut him to free up cap space? Arguments can be made for either option, but Jenkins’s performance in these final eight games will greatly influence the Giants’ final decision.

Giants fans overestimated the worth of these players to other teams. But they also underestimated the worth of these players to the Giants. Janoris Jenkins is a potential long-term veteran player that New York could hang onto. Alec Ogletree is a defensive captain and locker room leader. Nate Solder is also a captain and a better tackle than anyone else they have.

The New York Giants are a rebuilding team. But in order to rebuild an NFL roster, there does need to be a few veteran leaders on the roster. The Giants have their leaders and will not be letting go of them this season.

The New York Giants recently made their first ever trade with the New York Jets, to add Leonard Williams to the defense in a risky move that could either give them an immediate boost or look like a robbery for the Jets when everything is said and done, but that’s not the only trade they could make this season before the impending trade deadline.

According to Ian Rapoport, the Giants are also open to shopping three other players, all of which would be considered major ones – those players, predictably, are Janoris Jenkins, Alec Ogletree, and Nate Solder.

With #Jets DL Leonard Williams headed to the #Giants, both teams are hoping for more. NYJ continues to shop WR Robby Anderson, while NYG has shopped and is open to dealing Janoris Jenkins, Alec Ogletree and maybe Nate Solder.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) October 28, 2019

Jenkins has been rumored to be on the trading block for a long time, since before this season in fact, but Ogletree has only really entered the trade conversation recently due to the team’s failures this season and more discussions about the Giants making further moves to continue their rebuilding process.

Solder, on the other hand, has only joined the Giants this season after signing a large contract following a number of years with the Patriots – but it seems the Patriots front office once again may have made a smart move, as Solder’s play hasn’t justified his cost this season. Solder, in fact, has the third highest cap hit on the team behind Janoris Jenkins and Eli Manning.

It’s telling that the top three players in cap hit this year for the Giants either aren’t playing or are rumored to be on the trading block – the team hasn’t rebuilt enough to find its core, and it’s looking more and more every week like the current core of the team might not last into the start of next season.

The trade deadline on the 29th is the last day that the Giants have to make changes via trade before next offseason. Will we see a deal to move Solder, who was one of the biggest additions in this offseason? We’ll see, but it’s looking like it’s not completely off the table, perhaps surprisingly.