The offseason is the time when front offices made the most important decisions of the franchise. Right now the New York Giants are in contract extension talks with their top offensive players, but they will also get rid of someone in that unit on March 15. Releasing Kenny Golladay right when the new league year begins wasn’t surprising.
There are far more relevant things to handle for New York at this point. Extending Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley are topics that require full attention. The quarterback had a breakout year under new head coach Brian Daboll and the running back showed his best version since he entered the league.
They are both top candidates to receive the franchise tag in case they can’t get a deal done. Only one of them could get it, so the team needed to clear cap space for at least one new contract. Golladay was an obvious piece leaving the roster.
Kenny Golladay’s salary with the New York Giants
Investing big in free agency doesn’t always have good results. The Giants can tell that by their own experience based on what happened with the wide receiver. Golladay signed a massive four-year contract worth 72 million dollars coming from the Detroit Lions. His performances on the field were very far from the high expectations he had.
Now he will be cut to clear 6.7 million in the salary cap. The WR will end up making a total of 40.4 million in two years in New York, according to Spotrac. He finished his stay there with 43 catches for 602 yards and one touchdown in 26 games, starting 18 of those. That means splitting his numbers will mean each of the few contributions was very expensive.
Golladay then made $2,244,444 per start, $939,535 per catch, or $67,109 per yard gained through the air. He played 666 snaps on offense in 2021 and 261 in 2022 for a combined 927 snaps in a Giants uniform, per Pro Football Reference. To make it look even worse, New York paid him $43,581 per snap.
