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With the start of the training camp looming, the New York Giants have officially announced the rookie signings of their entire 2020 NFL Draft class.
4th-overall pick Andrew Thomas, 2nd-round pick Xavier McKinney and 4th-rounder Darnay Holmes were among nine of Big Blue’s 10 draft picks from last April’s draft to realize their NFL dreams on Monday, signing their rookie deals.
The 10th-player in the draft class, Mr. Irrelevant, linebacker Tae Crowder, signed his deal with the Giants back in May.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport has reported that Thomas’ deal is a four-year, fully guaranteed contract worth $32.345M with a 21.1M signing bonus.
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Giants Announce Signing of RB Sandro Platzgummer
While New York was up against the clock getting their rookies under contract with less than 24 hours to spare before the start of training camp, that didn’t stop them from making a slew of other roster moves on Monday.
The Giants announced the signing of Sandro Platzgummer, an Austrian running back. Platzgummer recently played for the Swarco Raiders Tirol, an American football team based out of Innsbruck, Austria and was allocated to the Giants as part of the NFL International Player Pathway Program back in April.
While Platzgummer may be new to the American football scene, he’s dominated at every level he’s previously played, as noted by Giants.com.
Participated in youth football leagues while growing up in Austria. Represented Austria on their U19 team and competed on the senior team in the 2018 European Championships. In 2019, Platzgummer played running back for the Swarco Raiders Tirol of the Austrian Football League with nearly 1000 total yards and 15 total touchdowns.
Giants Announce Rosas Release, Cut UDFA Malcolm Elmore
While Platzgummer and his fellow Giants newbies will be gearing up to take the practice field this week, UDFA cornerback Malcolm Elmore saw his tenure with the team end before it ever truly started. The former Central Methodist standout was waived with a non-football injury designation.
In his final season with the CMU Eagles, the defensive back compiled 58 tackles and a team-leading four interceptions.
The team also made the release of kicker Aldrick Rosas official a day after word broke that the team would indeed be moving on from the former Pro Bowler. This comes on the heels of Rosas facing three misdemeanor charges for an alleged hit-and-run accident back in June.
Rosas enjoyed a brilliant 2018 campaign with New York, ranking second in the NFL in field goal percentage with a mark of 97%. However, that year has since proven to be somewhat of an outlier, as he failed to eclipse a 72.0 field goal percentage in his two other seasons with the team. Releasing Rosas frees up a smidge over $3M in cap space for New York.
To replace Rosas, the Giants have signed former New York Jets kicker Chandler Catanzaro to a one-year deal. The move pulls Catanzaro out of retirement after sitting out the entirety of the 2019 season.
Over his five year NFL career, Catanzaro owns a respectable 83.8 field goal percentage.