New York Giants waive former St. Louis Rams CB Janoris Jenkins

The New York Giants waived CB Janoris Jenkins today following a strange couple of days where he seemingly tweeted during practice using an offensive term:

After picking up on the backlash hours later, Jenkins responded on Twitter to offer an apology:

During media availability the next day after meeting with Giants Head Coach Pat Shurmur (who was formerly the St. Louis Rams’ offensive coordinator in 2009 and 2010), Jenkins handled questions very poorly wrapping up the media period by not even answering if he would continue to use the word even if he recognized its offensiveness and ascribing his usage of it to being “a hood thing”:

Upon his release today, Shurmur added, “This was an organizational decision. From ownership to management to our football operations, we felt it was in the best interests of the franchise and the player. Obviously, what happened this week, and the refusal to acknowledge the inappropriate and offensive language, was the determining factor.”

Janoris’ response?

A strange saga indeed.

Since he goes to waivers instead of being released outright as NFL Media’ Tom Pelissero pointed out this morning, any team that selects him off of waivers would inherit his contract and be on the hook for the prorated amount of his salary remaining:

And so teams in the playoff hunt will have to decide today if they’ll be the ones to claim Janoris Jenkins off of waivers.

There’s a good resume to offer. Jenkins played well overall in New York though he’s had to deal with some poor defensive fronts that asked a lot of the secondary. Still, his 2019 season has included several strong performances:

So should the Rams be interested? Personally, I’d advocate not doing so. The combination of Jalen Ramsey and Troy Hill on the outside is more than adequate given the surrounding talents for the playoff push, and long-term the Rams have David Long, Jr., to continue to develop. Jenkins is certainly, on talent, an attractive component to have down the stretch this year and in 2020, but the Rams aren’t desperate enough to warrant bringing him aboard. I’d be surprised though if there isn’t a playoff team with a shaky CB depth chart that could use him and brings him on to ride out 2019.

But as it stands, the NFL is no longer strip club ready.