The New York Giants apparently had interest in Tony Pollard at the right price

Last Tuesday night was the premiere of a new-look edition of Hard Knocks, this one covering the New York Giants. What makes this season of Hard Knocks different is that it is covering an NFL team, obviously the G-Men, throughout the offseason. The focus is not training camp or the season (they have had an in-season Hard Knocks for a few seasons now) but the assembly of a roster. We hardly get to see general mangers or front office figures have these conversations in the way we see coaches discuss a player’s merits towards their roster in the traditional version of the show.

This season is covering the Giants and it begins with the earliest part of the offseason. This includes free agency and how New York went about their decision-making process.

The Giants felt that Tony Pollard was worth pursuing… if his price came down

Early in the episode Giants director of pro scouting Chris Rossetti spoke about how the team was (as we know) considering options at running back beyond Saquon Barkley. He went through blurbs of discussion regarding some of the top names in free agency and among them was obviously former Cowboys runner Tony Pollard.

Pollard is now a member of the Tennessee Titans which will not impact Dallas, but it is always interesting to see how your opponents view and evaluate you. Given that to this point Pollard has only played for the Cowboys, Rossetti’s assessment was of someone on a team who directly dominated his.

Here is what Rossetti had to say about Pollard:

“Pollard was another one… off a down year. The thing you liked about him was he does play on three downs. He does catch the ball. He’s not a power back by any means or a break tackle guy, but he does run decisively. If his price came down significantly, he’d be a guy that everyone in here said we would consider.”

In terms of the evaluation itself, everything said about Pollard is extremely fair. But it is interesting to see that the Giants were potentially in on him if his price came down.

The Titans ultimately signed Tony Pollard to a 3-year, $24M deal. As to whether or not that was the price that New York wanted him to come down off of or if he ultimately did come down and Tennessee just ultimately won out we do not know, but clearly New York had a line in the sand when it came to him and it stands to reason that Dallas did as well.

As far as the Cowboys themselves are concerned, they did not sign anyone in free agency and chose to bring back Ezekiel Elliott following not selecting one in the NFL Draft either (Dallas did re-sign Rico Dowdle and also later brought in Royce Freeman); however, in the early part of the free agency process they were briefly connected to names like A.J. Dillon and Zack Moss. The price point for Moss was reportedly the issue for the Cowboys, but they probably were in on his skills in pass protection. They also got a shout out from Rossetti.

“Zack Moss is an early-down banger. Really instinctive. Ran well… one of the better pass protectors in the NFL. He can catch the ball well, he’s just not going to be dynamic.”

You never know what type of nuggets are going to come out of things like these sorts of shows and getting a look at decisions like this is certainly very interesting. Perhaps this makes you feel better (if you were upset) about the Cowboys letting Tony Pollard walk. We now officially know that other teams around the league felt like his number, whatever it was, was too high.