Dan Graziano, senior NFL national reporter 9y

The Giants weren't wrong to cut Will Hill

Will Hill was the best player on the New York Giants' defense last year.

If you'd forgotten that, then watching Hill cover Jimmy Graham and return an interception for a touchdown Monday Night to help the Ravens beat the Saints brought it all back home for you. Hill is a special talent, and he would undoubtedly be an asset to a struggling Giants defense that's especially banged up in the secondary.

But none of that means the Giants were wrong to release Hill in June after learning of his third drug suspension in as many seasons.

"When you run a business, you have to be able to rely and depend on people to be there when you need them to perform their duties," Giants coach Tom Coughlin said at the time.

And that's it. Releasing Hill had nothing to do with the Giants' feelings about drugs, about Hill personally or about his ability to help them win their Week 12 game. It was all about the Giants deciding, with good reason, that they couldn't trust Hill to show up for work. He misses games due to a drug suspension literally every single year. His next suspension would likely be for at least a full year, if not longer. You can't keep investing time and resources and a roster spot in a player who has proven he's not going to be able to play every game.

There are players all over the league who get injured and miss games every year, and it's easy for people to understand the idea of moving on from those players because they can't get on the field. This should be even easier to understand. Hill doesn't have injury issues, which wouldn't necessarily be his fault. He has bad-life-decision issues, which are his fault and which he has shown an inability and/or unwillingness to correct.

"Will knew the situation he put the Giants in. He forced their hand," Giants safety and Hill confidant Antrel Rolle said at the time of the suspension. "For him to keep moving himself in the wrong direction is not a good thing. It's too easy to do right to keep doing wrong."

The Giants are happy to see Hill succeeding in Baltimore, where he sat out the first six games of the season after his latest suspension. They liked him as a person and loved him as a player, and no one in their building is surprised to see him playing well. But in order to get the benefits of Will Hill, you have to accept the drawbacks -- the most significant of which is the likelihood that he tests positive once again for drugs and can't play for you anymore. The Giants decided they'd had enough of assuming that risk, and just because Hill had a big game Monday Night, it doesn't mean it was the wrong decision.

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