Giants Re-Sign Stevie Brown and David Carr

New York Giants Re-Sign Safety Stevie Brown: Restricted free agent S Stevie Brown signed his 1-year, $2.023 million tender with the Giants yesterday. In other words, Brown has re-signed with Giants. The $2.023 million tender originally protected Brown at the second-round level, meaning another team would have had to give the Giants their second round pick in the 2013 NFL Draft if they had successfully signed Brown away from the Giants.

The only unsigned Giants’ restricted free agents now are WR Victor Cruz (1st round tender) and HB Andre Brown (2nd round tender).

New York Giants Re-Sign QB David Carr: Although not official yet, according to press reports, the Giants have agreed to terms to re-sign unrestricted free agent QB David Carr to a 1-year deal.

WR Louis Murphy Officially Signs His Deal: WR Louis Murphy, an unrestricted free agent from the Carolina Panthers, officially signed with the Giants yesterday.

Quotes: General Manager Jerry Reese on the state of the Giants: “Nobody was more disappointed than me (last season), believe me. We needed to retool a little bit and we started to do that. We need to get a little better on both sides of the ball on the line of scrimmage. Our offensive line, we need to improve a little bit. Our defensive line we feel like we have improved. We bring in Cullen Jenkins, who all of our people just loved. He’s been a terrific player. He’s been very durable…We need to reestablish that toughness on the front. Teams ran the ball too easily against us in my opinion last year, and I think that’s an area of concern. And our offensive line, that performance needs to get a little bit better too. But I think we’re headed in the right direction. The key to long-term success in this league is what happens at the end of every April. You have to draft well. If you do that, you’re going to have a chance to be competitive for years to come. If you have a couple of years where you don’t draft well, it is awfully difficult to come back.”

Reese on his free agent strategy: “I don’t think there is a template. Some years you have more money than other years and you think. ‘I can get out and strike quickly.’ I remember one year we went out and got Antrel Rolle and then another year we went out and got (Chris) Canty and (Michael) Boley and we went out and got a center (David Baas) one time. So you have to strike when you can, but other times you have to sit back and wait and let the market settle down a little bit. There are three levels of free agency…(You) have the first level; you get the guys out there who (are) going to get the money right away. Then there is a second level and then you can bottom feed on the guys left at the end.”

Reese on TE Adrien Robinson: “Wish we could have gotten him in some games more last year, but it just didn’t work out for us to get him in some games. But we really think – the guy is 280 pounds, he ran a 4.57 (40-yard dash) at his Pro Day, and we think he can really develop into a terrific blocker. In practice,he flashed some things that were really like some ‘Wow’ things in practice. So we’re expecting him to make a jump this season and get in and get going and give us some contributions as our big blocking tight end. And he can catch the ball really nice. So we expect to bring him along, and hopefully he’ll contribute for us.”

Reese on DE Justin Tuck: “I saw a guy that was not the Justin Tuck that I know. He and I had a good conversation about it. He’s driven, I’ve been seeing him at the office every day, to come back and show everybody – show himself first, obviously, and his teammates and our organization that he can be the old Justin Tuck. So he hadn’t played good, and we talked about it. He’s like, ‘I’m the leader, I know I haven’t played well, so it’s tough to lead when you’re not playing well yourself.’ He’s concerned about all of it. He’s very conscious of what we want to do, and who the Giants are, and what we try to represent in the National Football League, and the toughness. And he’s driven to come back and be that player, and I think you’re going to see that guy.”

Giants’ President/CEO John Mara on why so many free agents are signing 1-year contracts: “That’s what’s happened quite a bit right now. You find players who are quality players who haven’t gotten the big money offered to them, that want to go somewhere where they can maybe reestablish themselves as top flight players and maybe get the big contract the next time around. And we’ve been able to take advantage of that with a few of the guys that we’ve signed. So that has been a little bit surprising to me. But when you think about it, maybe it really shouldn’t be because the cap has been relatively flat, there wasn’t a big increase this year. I think that has a lot to do with it.”