The Giants record last season was good enough for the 6th pick in the PML draft. They ended the season with a 5-12 record, but the record doesn’t show how close they really were to a better record. They lost 9 one score games which is pretty impressive to choke that much during the season. It wasn’t all the same way either as each game had a different reason for losing. It’s almost as if the real life Giants and the PML Giants are one in the same.
At the end of the season they let a lot of people go and didn’t have much cap space to work with. They had 30 million, with 19.9 going to the draft class and 9.9 left to spend in free agency. They knew that wasn’t going to be enough so they went ahead and restructured Brian Burns contract, which freed up 15 mill space this season. With this they were able to fill a lot of holes in free agency, mostly related to offensive line and defensive back depth. The offensive line was the biggest weakness going into the offseason as they only had 3 lineman that were 70 overall or better.
Knowing the offensive line was their weakness, they tried multiple ways to secure a huge target by dangling their 6th pick in front of teams. A few teams tried to offer picks for the pick, some multiple late firsts, others a late first and seconds, but that wasn’t what they were going for. If the pick was being traded it had to include a superstar offensive lineman. The first offer that was put out there was to the Colts for LG Quenton Nelson. This would have been pick 23 and Nelson for 6. This was almost a real scenario, however, RG Joe Thuney decided to retire which forced the Colts to stay with what they had.
This made Coach Burn go to other options and found a deal was to be had with the Falcons. Multiple offers were made and negotiated but two were settled on. The first offer that was sent through was pick 1.6 and 2.6 for RG Chris Lindstrom and FS Jessie Bates. Two aging veterans for two high picks might seem like a high price for some, but the Giants have a lot of young players in need of leadership. Getting a 94 RG with the best ability in the game and a SSXF free safety to create one of the best defensive backs in the game was way to enticing. This could have created one of the best defenses on paper this season. The AI trade committee thought this wasn’t enough for 1.6 and thought the Falcons were getting away with a cap dump to free up space and denied it for that reason. The next offer, one which was perfect and fair for both teams, sent Lindstrom and 1.19 for 1.6. This was in line with what the trade calculator thought was fair and almost even on that. No way this trade should have been denied. Turns out it was, with the reason contradicting the last trade denial. They said that trading Lindstrom was too much of a cap penalty when before they said the Falcons were getting so much cap space for trading him. This resulted in both teams packing up shop and realizing the AI trade committee wasn’t letting a deal go through.
In all, Coach Burn was very disappointed as both of these trades would have been very helpful for the Giants. Lindstrom alone would have changed the way the offense saw the field and would have been a huge game changer. In the end pick 6 wasn’t traded and the Giants selected a huge game changer for the cycle but still would have preferred Lindstrom.
