New York Giants second-year cornerback DeAndre Baker is, like everyone else going through the legal process in America, afforded the notion that he is innocent until proven guilty.
The bevy of charges Baker currently faces in Miramar, Florida stemming from an armed robbery at a house party this past weekend are serious, and although the prosecution’s case appears to have some glaring holes in it, it doesn’t mean Baker will be back with the Giants should he be exonerated.
Under the new CBA, the NFL could still reprimand Baker if their investigation determines he violated the personal conduct clause, regardless of the result of their court case.
In Baker’s case, he could find himself on the commissioner’s exempt list, which takes him off the Giants’ active roster indefinitely and then he must follow a protocol to apply for reinstatement. Or, the league could just simply suspend him for an arbitrary number of games.
“When we eventually go in [to the NFL hearing], we’re going to say, ‘the state of Florida determined this kid to be of such high character, they gave him a license to carry a gun,'” Baker’s attorney Patrick Patel told Zack Rosenblatt of NJ Advance Media. “Was he in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong group? Probably so.”
This is all still to be determined as we all await the resolution of the case. In the interim, the Giants and the NFL are holding steady. Normally, if a player was facing such serious charges, their NFL team would likely have parted ways with them.
But Baker was a first round selection of the Giants in the 2019 NFL Draft and the Giants aren’t about to walk away so easily. There are strings attached.
“If he was someone closer to the bottom of the roster, he’d be gone,” a current NFC executive told NJ Advance Media. “For sure.”
Baker has also reached out to the Giants to offer an apology and seek forgiveness, according to the New York Post.
On Sunday night DeAndre Baker reached out to his employer to ask forgiveness. … Baker followed the instructions put forth for him and reached out to Jerry Meade, the Giants’ vice president of security. Baker, according to one of his attorneys, “conveyed his condolences’’ and asked his contrition be relayed to his teammates and general manager Dave Gettleman.
The Giants are heavily invested in Baker after signing him to a four-year, $10,525,716 contract last spring which includes a $5,675,064 signing bonus and $9,007,390 in guarantees.
Plus, after watching Baker flounder on the field as a rookie, the Giants are confident the 22-year-old will mature into a top NFL corner. They believe the growing pains may be behind him and some actually have him atop the depth chart this offseason.
The fact remains that Baker is in this jackpot and right now he’s in deep trouble. The Giants and the NFL seem willing to wait the situation out but the wait might be a long one.
