Josh Freeman released by Giants
Giants quarterback Josh Freeman holds footballs during an organized team activity on Thursday, May 29, 2014, in East Rutherford, N.J. Credit: AP / Julio Cortez
With Eli Manning and Curtis Painter mended from offseason surgeries and Ryan Nassib looking sharp, the Giants are no longer in the quarterback crisis they were anticipating this spring. So bye-bye Josh Freeman.
The Giants on Friday released the former Buccaneer and Viking who they added to their roster on April 21. He's the second quarterback to be signed and released by the Giants since the start of the offseason workouts. Rusty Smith suffered the same fate a few weeks back. The Giants are now back to having three quarterbacks on the roster.
While quarterback seems to be secure for now, protecting that position has become an issue. Theoretical starting left tackle Will Beatty is sidelined until "the fall," according to Tom Coughlin, and one of his potential replacements, John Jerry, had his knee scoped recently and will miss the rest of spring practices and minicamp. That left the Giants with James Brewer and Charles Brown playing the position with the first unit, and it is why the team added tackle Rogers Gaines off waivers from the Bears. Gaines, who is 6-6 and 325 pounds, was an undrafted rookie last year who spent the majority of the season on Chicago's practice squad. He was waived Thursday and the Giants were awarded him.
The Giants may not have released Freeman so quickly had they not needed to add a lineman, but it may be the best way for the situation to work out for the quarterback. He took only a handful of snaps in Thursday's OTA which was open to the media, while Manning and Nassib took nearly all of them. Now Freeman will have an opportunity to sign with another team and likely have a full training camp with them rather than be cut by the Giants right before the start of the regular season and try to catch on with a club at that point. The Giants saw how poorly that kind of situation worked out for Freeman last year when he gave one of the worst quarterback performances in recent memory for the Vikings against the Giants just two weeks after he was traded there from the Bucs.
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