On the surface, it was exploratory. Due diligence.
Does Russell Wilson to the Giants make sense?
Given the Giants quarterbacking situation, which — to put it mildly — is in flux, why not have a look?
Incumbent starter Daniel Jones is coming off a torn ACL, and his status for the start of the season is in question.
Jones’ veteran backup, Tyrod Taylor, is as injury prone as Jones is and a free agent who may or may not be re-signed.
Then there’s Tommy DeVito, the undrafted free agent and New Jersey native who crafted a neat local-boy-makes-good story in 2023.
And finally, there is the quarterback the Giants may or may not select in the draft next month, as they’ve been linked to Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy at the No. 6 overall pick.
So, Wilson, who’s set to be released by the Broncos, met with the Giants on Thursday morning before reportedly going on to visit the Steelers on Friday.
The Broncos, who are finished with Wilson and will release him Wednesday at the start of the new league year, gave the quarterback permission to meet with teams ahead of Monday’s free-agency tampering period.
A Wilson union with the Giants is unlikely given the circumstances, with the Giants publicly committing to Jones as their starter in 2024 when he’s healthy.
Wilson wants to be a starter, which he’s been for his entire 12-year career.
So, why would Wilson want to come to the Giants and serve as a placeholder for Jones until he’s healthy enough to play?
Herein lies a compelling question, though: Does any team really want to commit to Wilson as its starter in 2024 given how badly things went for him in Denver the past two seasons? Maybe Wilson won’t have a choice but to swallow his pride, join a team as a backup and earn his way back into a starting job.
For the Giants, if Wilson were to come to them willing to begin as a backup with the chance to compete for the starting job, it might not be a bad acquisition given his experience and given how poor their quarterbacking situation was in 2023.
There isn’t a more polarizing and confounding figure in the NFL than Wilson at the moment.
He’s had a decorated career, which includes a Super Bowl title and nine Pro Bowls. He was a winner in each of his first nine NFL seasons before things began to go south in 2021, his final season in Seattle, and then worse in Denver, where his reputation has taken a beating.
Since ’21, Wilson has endured two miserable seasons in Denver, where he went 4-11 in 2023 and 7-8 last season before being benched for the final two games of the season after refusing to change the injury guarantees built into his contract.
The weird element to last season is that Wilson threw 26 TD passes to only eight INTs. Jones, in his five NFL seasons, has never delivered numbers that good.
Wilson has had some spectacular seasons, throwing 40 TDs to 13 INTs and throwing for 4,212 yards in 2020. He threw 31 TDs to only five INTs in 2019 and 35 TDs to seven INTs in 2018.
Jones hasn’t come close to putting up those numbers in his career to date and is now perceived as damaged goods, having dealt with multiple neck injuries and now the knee in the past three seasons.
But Wilson’s leadership and value as a teammate have been in question in Denver, where he reportedly had his own office in the building in 2022 when Nathaniel Hackett was the head coach. Wilson was heavily criticized during his first season with the Broncos for separating himself from the team. And now, second-year Broncos head coach Sean Payton can’t wait to rid himself of Wilson.
Since the Broncos still owe Wilson $39 million guaranteed this season, he could conceivably accept a deal for the league minimum of $1.2 million, and this is something that makes him attractive to a potential suitor since he comes cheap and won’t crush the salary cap.
Jones, who signed a four-year, $160 million contract after the 2023 season, is expendable without significant salary cap consequence after this season.
The Giants are expected to address their quarterback situation in the draft. Where Wilson fits in with all of this is unknown, but it was likely a mere passing through of East Rutherford, N.J., on nothing more than an exploratory visit.
Wilson, who’s thrown for 43,653 yards with 334 TDs and 106 INTs in his career, is seeking a third NFL team after spending the first 10 seasons of his career with the Seahawks.
