No deal for former Giants safety Curtis Riley after visit with Packers
Tom SilversteinGREEN BAY – New York Giants free-agent safety Curtis Riley visited Monday with the Green Bay Packers, but the 16-game starter last season left town without a deal.
It appears both sides will pursue other options, according to a source.
The Packers need a deep safety and Riley, a converted cornerback, had the ball skills they like for the position. He had four interceptions last year and could have had several more had he not dropped them.
Riley struggled with taking proper angles and tackling and was benched in the season finale when he shied away from a tackle on a 39-yard touchdown completion. He would have been brought in to compete with others, but he could have been plugged in as a starter.
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Riley, who ran a 4.5 40-yard dash and had a vertical jump of 38½ inches at Fresno State’s pro day in 2015, was probably attractive to the Packers because of his man-to-man coverage ability. They like their safeties to be able to line up in the slot and cover a receiver when necessary.
The best option for the Packers to fill the position is the draft, but there are still a few free agents available, including recently released Kansas City Chiefs free safety Eric Berry. The Packers don’t have a ton of money to spend and might only be willing to sign someone to a club-friendly deal.
In addition to newly signed Adrian Amos, the Packers have Raven Greene and Josh Jones under contract and are interested in bringing back free agent Ibraheim Campbell. They also have the option of keeping cornerback Tramon Williams at safety, but their preference would be to play him at corner.
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Packers' salary cap could tighten
The Packers signed tight end Marcedes Lewis to a one-year, $2.1 million deal, according to a source.
Lewis’ deal consists of a $500,000 signing bonus, a base salary of $1.05 million, a $50,000 workout bonus and $500,000 in play-time incentives.
His deal will eat up about $1.4 million of cap space.
The NFL Players Association keeps track of the salary cap, but it often isn’t up-to-date and though the signings the Packers made appeared to take them down to about $13.7 million in cap space, a league source said they’re much lower than that.
The source said it could be closer to $5 million under because of certain charges they incurred, most likely from last year, dropped their number down significantly. Until the NFLPA catches up with the league on salary cap data, the exact figure won’t be known.
But after their big spending spree in free agency, they may be in much tighter shape than previously thought.