PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Giants are going to trade James Bradberry.
It’s unwise, but it’s going to happen.
GM Joe Schoen is expected to unload the team’s best defensive back soon, according to league sources here at The Breakers luxury resort in Palm Beach, Fla.
The Houston Texans, Kansas City Chiefs and Indianapolis Colts are teams to watch in a Bradberry trade, sources say.
All three of those teams have salary cap space and a need at outside corner. The Texans and Chiefs are both overflowing with draft capital this year. Houston has two high picks in both the third and fourth rounds of this year’s draft.
Co-owner John Mara acknowledged the obvious late Sunday afternoon: Bradberry won’t be a Giant much longer.
“That would hurt because he’s been a very good player and he’s been a consummate professional for us,” Mara said, when asked about possibly cutting Bradberry if no trade occurred. “But the cap situation is what it is. So we’d have to consider all options there.”
This will mark the second major change to a defense that was the strength of the Giants’ team the past two seasons, following the release of safety Logan Ryan.
Surprisingly, the lone veteran starting defensive back the Giants are retaining is corner Adoree Jackson, an average and overpaid player who is not a No. 1 corner. Bradberry is a better player and had a down year in 2021 playing through injuries last season.
The Giants have the option of extending Bradberry to lower his $21.8 million salary, but that’s not an avenue they’re pursuing.
The impending Bradberry trade reinforces that the Giants are likely to draft a corner high in late April. Schoen attended the Cincinnati pro day last week, and Giants brass had dinner with top-10 corner talent Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner, per NFL Network.
The Giants also have met over Zoom with Notre Dame free safety Kyle Hamilton, a versatile athlete with range and playmaking ability.
Defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale places a high value on outside corners who can play effective press man coverage and allow the DC to send blitzes and generate pressure on the quarterback.
The organization’s salary cap squeeze is part of the reason for the Bradberry release, considering they need $12.5 million just to fit their nine draft picks on the books, according to overthecap.com.
Trading Bradberry would save $12.1 million. Cutting him outright would save $10.1 million.
Schoen is likely to seek a trade back from one of his two top-10 picks at No. 5 or No. 7 overall in order to acquire an extra first in 2023, per NBC’s Peter King. Doing that, plus dealing away some later round picks for 2023 capital, could soften the draft cap commitment.
Trading Bradberry won’t be purely a salary cap move, though. It will also reflect the Giants don’t have sufficient respect for the corner’s skills on the field, despite a strong 2020 season when healthy.
Cutting Ryan, meanwhile, was a move purely about getting him out of the locker room and off the field as a conduit to players, team and media. People in the front office wanted him out. The Giants saved next to no money by releasing him and are committing almost all of his 2022 cap space to a player not on their roster.
“It was a decision that Brian and Joe made, they decided they wanted to move on so I wasn’t gonna block it,” Mara said of cutting Ryan. “I was sorry to see him go. I thought he was a good player who did some great thigs for our community. But if our head coach and general manager make a football decision, I’m not gonna block it.”
Change is the norm for the Giants this offseason. And more is coming.
