If everythingis personal, or at least feels like it is personal, then Barry Cofield should be viewing as a personal affront his likely, impending forced exit from the Giants.
Cofield has no team and no contract after five very solid seasons playing defensive tackle for the Giants. The lockout has shut down NFL business, making Cofield’s offseason an extended waiting game.
Eventually he will be on the open market, though his intense desire is to remain with the Giants. Still, he knows that so many moves made by the team — for several years — add up to his getting pushed off the roster.
He certainly has done enough to wonder “Why me?” and to warn the Giants that if and, more likely, when they don’t re-sign him he will make them pay.
And yet, Cofield resists the usual athlete mantra — It’s about me — for a heavy dose of reality.
“I would love to re-sign with the Giants,” Cofield said yesterday to The Post.
“But you don’t get to script out your career. Not everyone can be Michael Strahan, be a lifetime Giant, ride off into the sunset after the Super Bowl. Some of us don’t get that luxury.”
There’s been no luxury for Cofield, who has earned every dollar he’s been paid by the Giants, and in fact been a mammoth bargain.
He was a 2006 fourth-round pick out of Northwestern, admittedly “never been the belle of the ball” — yet as a rookie moved into the starting lineup in his third preseason game and never left, starting 78 of 80 regular-season games and all six in the postseason.
His first contract, a four-year deal for a total of about $2.5 million, expired after the 2009 season, and Cofield should have been headed into free agency. The collective-bargaining agreement also expired, though, plunging the 2010 season into an uncapped year, and Cofield was no longer free. He signed a one-year tender for $1.7 million, a team-friendly arrangement that put cash in his pocket but offered no financial security.
Since he’s been on the scene, the Giants signed veterans Chris Canty and Rocky Bernard, used a third-round draft pick on Jay Alford and the past two years used second-round picks on Linval Joseph and Marvin Austin.
All are defensive tackles.
“I think they think I’m a good player,” Cofield said. “Obviously they don’t view me as indispensable. They place a premium on certain positions. Let’s be honest, defensive end is the name of the game in New York.
“It starts with Stray since I’ve been here and goes all the way down to JPP [Jason Pierre-Paul], so it’s like those guys are going to come first. There’s not money for everyone. When they invested the amount of money they invested in Chris, that kind of handcuffed them to a certain extent.”
Cofield would like to think Canty’s deal (six years, $42 million) is what awaits him in free agency, as he’s only 27 years old and says he is completely healthy, healed from shoulder surgery three days after the season ended to repair a biceps tendon.
With other key players set to hit the market — Steve Smith, Ahmad Bradshaw, Kevin Boss, Mathias Kiwanuka — Cofield says, “I can definitely see myself getting pushed to the end of the line.”
If so, he will move on with plenty of memories and no regrets.
“I’m not going to act like I’m holier than thou,” he said.
“Obviously I have those feelings. A lot of people don’t agree with me on this, but a lot of times you have to take a step back and think about what I’m getting paid, is it going to be this many million or that many million, versus the guy out there who’s struggling to make his mortgage the next month.”