NFL New York Giants

Jason Pierre-Paul Is Forcing New York Giants’ Hand For New Contract

Jason Pierre-Paul, New York Giants

Robert Deutsch-USA Today Sports

Coming into this season, one of the biggest questions surrounding the New York Giants was whether this would be Jason Pierre-Paul‘s last season with the organization. After his breakout season in 2011, Pierre-Paul hasn’t put up the same numbers because of injuries and a variety of the other reasons. He has had an outstanding all around year, and recently added big sack numbers which will force the Giants to invest heavily in him this upcoming offseason.

Pierre-Paul was a first-round pick in 2010 and was a Pro Bowl player and first team All-Pro by his second season. In his breakout season, Pierre-Paul had 16.5 sacks, and while he has impacted games since then, he hasn’t been able to come close to matching those sack numbers.

In the first 11 games of Pierre-Paul’s contract season, he was playing tremendous football but wasn’t putting up the numbers that would make his case for a huge contract. In the past three games, however, JPP has sacked the opposing quarterback six times, increasing his season total to 9.5.

9.5 sacks is good for 14th in the league, tied with Cameron Wake and Jerry Hughes. Add that to the fact that Pierre-Paul also has 68 total tackles, which is an insane number for a defensive lineman and more than that of even J.J. Watt, and you can see what kind of season he is having.

If that is not enough evidence for you, Pro Football Focus ranks Pierre-Paul as the fourth best 4-3 defensive end all around this season and the best 4-3 defensive end in terms of stopping the run. Just because the numbers may not have always been other-worldly, that doesn’t mean Pierre-Paul hasn’t been a hugely impactful player this season.

If JPP hadn’t raised his sack numbers, the Giants’ organization would have been able to argue that he wasn’t getting to the quarterback enough to warrant a huge free agent contract. However, the fact that he has almost tripled his sack total in the past three weeks, albeit against bad teams, just reinforces the fact that he is well worth the money, and the Giants have to pay him this coming offseason to be the leader on the defensive side of the ball.

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