The Giants released offensive tackle James Hudson on Friday, the team announced. The move created $5.4 million in cap space, with the Giants eating $2.3 million in dead money.
The Giants signed the swing tackle to a two-year, $12 million deal in the 2025 offseason, guaranteeing him $6.01 million.
Hudson, who turns 27 in May, appeared in 11 games with two starts in his only season in New York. He saw action on 85 offensive snaps and 44 on special teams.
He had five penalties last season, with four coming in a start against the Cowboys before the team benched him.
Hudson entered the league as a fourth-round pick of the Browns in 2021 and played his first four seasons in Cleveland. Hudson played 49 games with 17 starts with the Browns.
Giants Clips
The Giants are holding onto kick returner and wide receiver Gunner Olszewski.
Olszewski and the Giants reached an agreement today on a one-year deal, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN. Olszewski was slated to become a free agent next week.
Last year Olszewski was the Giants’ primary return man, with 24 punt returns for 216 yards and 26 kickoff returns for 682 yards. He also had 10 catches for 145 yards and a touchdown.
Olszewski has also played for the Patriots and Steelers and has earned a reputation as a good special teams contributor and occasional playmaker on offense. New Giants coach John Harbaugh always emphasizes having strong special teams, and Olszewski fits with the kind of team Harbaugh wants to build.
Linebacker Bobby Okereke has gotten a head start on finding his new team.
The Giants officially released Okereke on Wednesday. A report that the move was coming came on Tuesday night and Okereke will be able to sign with another club ahead of the start of the new league year next week if he’s able to come to an agreement that quickly.
Okereke will not factor into the formula for assigning compensatory draft picks related to free agency moves because he was released.
Okereke spent the last three seasons with the Giants and started 46 of the 51 games the team played over that span. He had 385 tackles, 5.5 sacks, four interceptions, seven forced fumbles and three fumble recoveries.
The Chiefs have agreed to trade Trent McDuffie to the Rams when the new league year opens next week, but they weren’t the only NFC team pursuing a deal for the cornerback.
Sam McDowell of the Kansas City Star reports that the Giants were also engaged in conversations with the Chiefs about a deal. The Chiefs ultimately decided to move forward with the Rams’ offer of the 29th overall selection and three other picks.
The Giants have the fifth overall pick in April’s draft, but it’s not clear what they were willing to give up in exchange for McDuffie.
With that door now closed, the Giants will have to look elsewhere for help at cornerback. They could trade for another player or they could target McDuffie’s Chiefs teammate Jaylen Watson and others in free agency.
The Giants will be taking the show on the road for the first year of John Harbaugh’s time with the team.
Via Paul Schwartz of the New York Post, the Giants will spend the first two weeks of 2026 training camp at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
The move will happen because of construction at the team’s practice facility and the upcoming World Cup. MetLife Stadium will host the final game, in July.
The Giants last practiced away from their practice facility in 2010.
In 2014, The Greenbrier built a practice facility for the Saints, who spent three training camps there. The Texans practiced there in 2017, 2018, and 2025. The Browns made the trip to West Virginia in 2023 and 2024.
Other teams, including the Cardinals and 49ers, have stayed and worked at The Greenbrier between regular-season road games on the other side of the country from their headquarters.
The Giants have informed linebacker Bobby Okereke that they are releasing him at the start of the league year on March 11, according to Jordan Schultz of The Schultz Report.
Okereke was entering the final year of a four-year, $40 million contract, and his release will save them $9 million this season.
He started all 17 games in 2025, totaling 143 tackles, a sack, two interceptions and six passes defensed.
In his three seasons with the Giants, Okereke recorded 385 tackles, 5.5 sacks, four interceptions, seven forced fumbles and 19 pass breakups.
Okereke, who turns 30 on July 29, played four seasons in Indianapolis after the Colts made him a third-round pick in 2019.
Giants defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence is set to make $20 million this season, but he has no guaranteed money left on his contract. That had Giants General Manager Joe Schoen facing some questions at the Scouting Combine about Lawrence’s future.
Schoen was surprised by those questions.
“I don’t know where this Dex stuff is coming from,” Schoen said multiple times, according to Jordan Raanan of ESPN.
If the Giants did want to move on from Lawrence, they’d surely get some trade offers for a 28-year-old who started all 17 games last season. But head coach John Harbaugh indicated that the Giants see Lawrence as part of their future.
“How important is he? Really important. He’s super, super important,” Harbaugh said. “He’s a cornerstone football player, not really a cornerstone. He’s more like the middle stone. He’s right in the middle. He’s a very big stone and he’s a very active athletic stone. So we want him in there being a big stone.”
The Giants look like a rebuilding team, but Harbaugh has indicated he wants to win right away, and that he thinks Lawrence is a player who helps them win.
Teams making decisions about picking up the fifth-year options on the contracts of their 2023 first-round picks now know how much that will cost.
The NFL revealed the values on Friday afternoon. There are four levels of compensation at each position. Players who have made multiple Pro Bowls as an original selection are at the top followed by players with one Pro Bowl selection and players who have hit playing time milestones before reaching the lowest level.
Panthers quarterback Bryce Young and Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud were the first two picks of that draft and both of them reached the playing time level of compensation. That will leave them with fully guaranteed salaries of $25.904 million if the teams decide to exercise the options, but longer-term extensions are also a possibility now that they have finished their third seasons.
The full list of 2023 first-rounders — there were 31 that year because the Dolphins were stripped of their pick — and their fifth-year option salaries appears below:
1. Panthers QB Bryce Young — $25.904 million (playing time).
2. Texans QB C.J. Stroud — $25.904 million (playing time).
3. Texans DE Will Anderson — $21.512 (Pro Bowl).
4. Colts QB Anthony Richardson — $22.483 million (base).
5. Seahawks CB Devon Witherspoon — $21.161 million (multiple Pro Bowls).
6. Cardinals OT Paris Johnson — $19.072 million (playing time).
7. Raiders DE Tyree Wilson — $14.475 million (base).
8. Falcons RB Bijan Robinson — $11.323 million (Pro Bowl).
9. Eagles DT Jalen Carter — $27.127 million (multiple Pro Bowls).
10. Bears OT Darnell Wright — $19.072 million (playing time).
11. Titans OG Peter Skoronski — $19.072 million (playing time).
12. Lions RB Jahmyr Gibbs — $14.293 million (multiple Pro Bowls).
13. Packers DE Lukas Van Ness — $14.475 million (base).
14. Steelers OT Broderick Jones — $19.072 million (playing time).
15. Jets DE Will McDonald — $14.475 million (base).
16. Rams CB Emmanuel Forbes — $12.633 million (base).
17. Patriots CB Christian Gonzalez — $18.119 million (Pro Bowl).
18. Lions LB Jack Campbell — $21.925 million (Pro Bowl).
19. Buccaneers DT Calijah Kancey — $15.451 (playing time).
20. Seahawks WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba — $23.852 million (Pro Bowl).
21. Chargers WR Quentin Johnston — $18 million (playing time).
22. Ravens WR Zay Flowers — $27.298 million (multiple Pro Bowls).
23. Vikings WR Jordan Addison — $18 million (playing time).
24. Giants CB Deonte Banks — $12.633 million (base).
25. Bills TE Dalton Kincaid — $8.162 million (base).
26. Jets DT Mazi Smith — $13.391 million (base) Smith was traded to the Jets by the Cowboys.
27. Jaguars OT Anton Harrison — $19.072 million (playing time).
28. Bengals DE Myles Murphy — $14.475 million (base).
29. Saints DT Bryan Bresee — $13.391 million (base).
30. Eagles LB Nolan Smith — $13.752 million (base).
31. Chiefs Felix Anudike-Uzomah — $14.475 million (base).
Four weeks ago today, the latest release of the Epstein files implicated Giants co-owner Steve Tisch. Three days later, Commissioner Roger Goodell said the NFL will “look at all the facts.”
Since then, the NFL has said nothing.
More facts have emerged, including reporting that contradicts Tisch’s claim of a “brief association” with Jeffrey Epstein and an item from The Athletic that characterizes Tisch’s behavior as a potential instance of quid pro quo sexual harassment.
Through it all, the league has referred reporters to Goodell’s comments from February 2. That’s the message the league recently repeated to Dan Wetzel of ESPN.com.
The league could be waiting for it to all blow over. Alternatively, the NFL could be hoping that the Tisch family will nudge Steve out of the spotlight as the representative of the folks who own the 45-percent share of the Giants.
Regardless, it’s not going away. As one high-level employee with another team told PFT on Friday, “Steve has to go.”
The league’s inaction makes even more clear the double standard between the Personal Conduct Policy that applies to owners and the one that applies to everyone else. Although the league claims owners are held to a higher standard, that rarely happens in practice. (For more, get yourself a copy of my 2022 book, Playmakers.)
Generally speaking, silence, inaction, and distraction have proven (so far) to be a useful strategy for more than a few of the men whose interactions with Epstein cry out for investigation and, possibly, consequences. Few seem to be buying the notion that it’s a hoax or a witch hunt or whatever other label would be used to dismiss something that should never be dismissed.
Whatever the outcome, the NFL must investigate Tisch. Until it does, it’s impossible for any league investigation of a player or any other non-owner to have a shred of credibility.
Kayvon Thibodeaux’s name started coming up in trade chatter after the Giants drafted Abdul Carter with the third overall pick last year and it hasn’t gone away early in this offseason.
Thibodeaux is heading into a contract year and adding Carter to an edge rushing mix that also includes Brian Burns makes it less likely that the Giants are going to make a long-term investment in Thibodeaux’s services. The prospect of trading Thibodeaux came up when General Manager Joe Schoen spoke to reporters at the Scouting Combine earlier this week.
“Right now, Kayvon’s going to be with us,” Schoen said, via Jordan Raanan of ESPN.com. “He played well. He is going into his fifth year and he’s motivated and you can’t have enough pass rushers. You really can’t. So I’m proud of the development and the maturation of Kayvon and he’s come a long way. And I expect big things out of him next year with that rotation.”
Schoen added that “you take into consideration everything” that comes up in terms of calls from other teams and dealing Thibodeaux, who is set to make $14.75 million, would open significant cap space that the Giants could use to shore up weaker spots on their roster.
