Giants Release Tate and Mayo

Posted on by Jason Fitzgerald

The Giants have started their 2021 roster cutting by informing Golden Tate and David Mayo that they will be released this year.

The Tate signing in particular is one that the Giants probably wish they had back. It got off to a terrible start with Tate being suspended for four games for PEDs and finishing the year with under 700 yards. It got worse this year with Tate being unhappy with his usage and being sent home at some point. He finished this year with under 400 yards.

Tate’s signing was always a questionable signing. Tate had been traded mid season to the Eagles in 2018 and performed poorly with under 300 receiving yards in 8 games. The Giants still pursued him and signed him to a lucrative four year, $37.5 million contract of which about $23 million was guaranteed. Tate voided those guarantees with his suspension which game them an opportunity to release him in 2020 but the Giants decided to chase the contract instead paying $10.352 million against the cap for him. Tate was going to count for $10.852 million on the cap this year and his release will save the Giants $6.147 million.

David Mayo joined the Giants in 2019 on a minimum contract after he was cut by the 49ers. Mayo played in nearly 57% of the defensive snaps for the Giants that season and had 52 tackles. He was also a special teams mainstay. He signed a three year contract worth $2.8 million a year and $3.5 million guaranteed in 2020, but saw his defensive participation drop to under 20%.

Mayo was going to count for $2.3 million on the cap this year which is somewhat reasonable for a special teams standout. His cut is probably tied more to the expected cap downturn and the Giants needs to fill so many voids on their offensive and defensive units. They will save all of the $2.3 million with the cut.

The Giants were more or less right around the estimated cap limit so when these moves become official they should be around $8 million under the cap.