New York Giants: 3 worst trades in franchise history
By Randy Gurzi
2. Sending Jason Pierre-Paul to Tampa Bay
One of the trades Dave Gettelman did make that ended up on this list came in the 2018 season when he gave up on pass rusher Jason Pierre-Paul.
The former 15th overall pick out of South Florida came back from a firework accident that caused part of his hand to be amputated and became a solid pass rusher once again. However, he had 15.5 sacks in 2016 and 2017 which wasn’t the same as when he was putting up double-digits.
Still, he was causing problems for the opposing quarterback even if his numbers weren’t elite. Despite this, Gettelman sent JPP to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for a mere third-round pick.
His reasoning for the trade was that he didn’t believe Pierre-Paul was a fit in their new 3-4 scheme — of course, if a good player doesn’t fit your scheme, you might have a bugger problem but that’s for another day.
Pierre-Paul thrived in Tampa Bay, putting up 58 tackles and 12.5 sacks in his first season with them. Ironically enough, JPP moved to outside linebacker when they moved to a 3-4, and surprisingly enough — since he’s a good player — he did just fine and had 18 sacks in 2019 and 2020 combined.