Giant
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- Mar 19, 2019
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Free agency did not go the way Markus Golden expected in 2019, so he signed a one-year deal with the Giants. After 10 sacks and 15 quarterback hits last season, Golden thought he would find a healthy free agency market.
He didn’t.
The Giants applied the rarely used May 5 free agent tender on him when he remained unsigned, returning Golden to the team on a one-year, $4.1 million deal with $1 million in bonuses also available.
“You put in a lot of work during the season,” Golden said Monday, via Zack Rosenblatt of NJ.com. “This is a game that they say if you put the work in, hard work is going to pay off, and the game is going to pay you back in different ways. Of course, [free agency] was frustrating, but you just have to work harder and use everything as motivation.”
Golden admits he was “surprised” at the tender, having no idea it even existed. He also insists he harbors no ill will toward the Giants.
“Business is business,” Golden said. “I know how this stuff goes. I’v been having that really since college and so I got a business mindset. You’ve got to have that mindset because that’s exactly what is. Yeah, it’s football, a game we’ve been playing since we were kids. But when you get to this level . . . you start to realize it’s a business. That’s a mindset I keep so I’ll be ready when different stuff like that happens.”