Giants Unlikely To Use Franchise Tag On DE Jason Pierre-Paul

Jordan Raanan of Newark Star-Ledger explores the value of Giant DE Jason Pierre-Paul as he prepares to test the free agent market next year.

Pierre-Paul has said that he would like to be a “Giants for life,” but as Raanan mentions, it’s hard to determining what his is worth due to a number of factors.

It wasn’t all that long ago that Pierre-Paul was being mentioned as one of the games best defensive players. However, injuries and inconsistent play has left some wondering if he’ll ever get back to being the kind of impact player he was for the Giants’ defense a few season ago.

Raanan mentions that you can rule out the possibility of the Giants using their franchise tag on Pierre-Paul seeing as it would take up $15 million of their available $20 million in cap space.

New York’s available cap space is likely to increase after roster cuts are made, but there probably still won’t be enough money to franchise Pierre-Paul and address other roster needs in free agency.

According to Raanan, the most likely scenario for Pierre-Paul this offseason is for him to ultimately sign a similar contract to the one the Buccaneers gave to DE Michael Johnson last year — five-years, $43 million and $23 million guaranteed.

Pierre-Paul, 25, is in the final year of his  five-year, $20.05 million rookie contract that included $11,629,807 million guaranteed.

This season, Pierre-Paul has recorded 61 tackles, seven sacks, two forced fumbles and a recovery over the course of 13 games.

We have him rated as the No. 10 player in our Top 25 – 2015 Free Agents list.