Cornerback Leon Hall signed a one-year, $2 million contract with the New York Giants. Hall spent the past nine years with the Cincinnati Bengals.
FA CB Leon Hall’s deal with the #Giants is for 1 year and can be worth up to $2M, source said. Picked #Giants over #Bengals.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) August 4, 2016
Leon Hall Signs With New York Giants
After finishing up last season with only four games started, the once superb corner looks to enter the twilight of his career while squeezing out one more payday. He was a huge part of a Bengals team that surprisingly started undefeated this season, before Andy Dalton injured his thumb and missed the rest of the season. And the team was finally eliminated in a close but hard fought battle against Pittsburgh in the playoffs.
Hall has collected various merits over the years – 2009 Second Team All-Pro, team-record three interceptions in one game, a Pro Bowl appearance, and 2 AFC Defensive Player of the Week Awards.
What He Brings
But for all that has been accomplished, he is still entering the latter stage of his career, especially with nearly 10 years on the job and now pushing 31 years in age. It’ll be interesting to see if he can, at the very minimum, maintain a starting position for a whole year, even after five years of inconsistent starts (9, 14, 5, 15, 14). The first four years of his career saw him jump from 10 games started as a rookie to 16 over the next three seasons.
It’s fair to say though, his best spot might be as the third or nickle cornerback, where he isn’t relied upon heavily. His two Achilles injuries over the years have left him injury prone and ended his seasons prematurely. Hopefully for Hall, he can stay healthy, because he’s still a headache to deal with, as evidenced by that AFC Defensive Player of the Week Award in the 2015 season against the Rams (6 tackles, 1 INT and return for a touchdown).
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