New York Giants, Super Bowl Contenders?
The New York Giants opened free agency with a big splash, bringing in Brandon Marshall of the cross-town Jets. Brandon Marshall needs no introduction, as he has delivered everywhere he has played over his career. Him and QB Ryan Fitzpatrick actually had a great rapport 2 seasons ago and the Jets were better than decent. Whatever happened over the off-season, it changed the team dramatically, and the Jets regressed terribly and became a laughingstock of the league last year.
This led to the ultimate release of Brandon Marshall by the Jets. Yes, Marshall is one of the best receivers in the league, but he's also a little older and a step slower than he once used to be. Add that to the fact that the Jets don't have a starting caliber QB to even throw to Marshall, and they saw this as not a smart investment and decided to release him to allow him to choose where he would be continuing his career, as well as the team starting their own rebuild.
Brandon Marshall chose to play in New York again, this time for the Giants. Playing next to Odell Beckham Jr can only do good things for Marshall in his age, and he is automatically an improvement on 2nd year man Sterling Shepard (though Shepard does have the potential to be great). The Giants dropped Victor Cruz last week, so Marshall will slide in as the #2 WR and Shepard down to the #3, which is a dramatic improvement of the Giants WR corp from last season.
The Giants also spent a lot of money on defense last season, and while they started the season slow, the defense picked up the pace quickly through the season, and showed that they were money well spent. If the defense can continue to play at a high level, and Eli Manning can develop chemistry with Marshall quick, the Giants are certainly Super Bowl contenders for this upcoming season, especially given the state of some of the other teams in their division (Redskins and Kirk Cousins can't agree to a deal, Eagles are still young and not a complete roster). The only problem with this, is that they also play in the same division as the Dallas Cowboys and their young duo of Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott. One thing is for certain though, the NFC East will definitely have some entertaining matchups.
