Giants Lose Umenyiora to Falcons

After years and months of consternation over the contract of defensive end Osi Umenyiora, a once frustrated Giant is a frustrated Giant no more. Umenyiora signed with the Atlanta Falcons late Wednesday night, signing a two-year $8.5 million contract, with $5 million guaranteed.

For a couple years Umenyiora had been seeking a monster contract that the Giants could not afford. There was even speculation for a long time that he would bolt to neighboring teams like the Jets or Eagles if he was not able to get a deal with Big Blue.

Instead Umenyiora will fly south to join a Falcons team that was a 4th down conversion away from going to the Super Bowl last season.

There is reason for concern here for Atlanta, and you can understand why the Giants felt the need to move on from Osi. He is 31-years old, and really hasn't been the major impact player he once was. Last season, Umenyiora had only six sacks, and appeared to lose a step and depth on the Giants rotating defensive line.

Atlanta hopes that Osi can replace John Abraham, who is also a free agent, and is the Falcons all time leading sacks leader. Chances are, the Falcons are going to miss Abraham a lot.

Meanwhile, Umenyiora tried to pool cold water on the belief that he and Giants GM Jerry Reese have a poor relationship saying: " "Me and Jerry are cool, man," Umenyiora said. "We've always been cool. Jerry's my guy. Obviously if it wasn't for him I probably wouldn't even be here, because obviously the team did a comprehensive amount of research on me and my background because of some of the things that have been reported. They wanted to know what type of person I was. So obviously they had to talk to Jerry Reese as well as my coach, and they had nothing but positive things to say."

In other word, he's cool with Reese, now that they are about 1,000 miles apart from one another. Let the rebuilding of the Giants D-line begin.