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    Devonta Freeman odds winner: New York Giants will sign two-time Pro Bowler with Saquon Barkley lost for season

    Former Pro Bowl running back Devonta Freeman will sign with the New York Giants.
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    Former Atlanta Falcons running back Devonta Freeman, a two-time Pro Bowler (2015 & '16) who once was the highest-paid tailback in the NFL, reportedly had a handful of contenders to choose from this offseason to sign with but for whatever reason didn't find a home. On Tuesday, he did and it's about as far from a contending team as possible: The winless New York Giants.

    SportsLine had been running "which team will sign Devonta Freeman" odds for months and the Giants were always on there because they were so thin at the position behind superstar Saquon Barkley.

    When Barkley suffered a torn ACL in Sunday's loss in Chicago, it made all the sense in the world for the Giants to reach out to Freeman and sign him before potentially the division-rival Eagles did (they worked out Freeman last week). Or before the Carolina Panthers possibly did after losing Christian McCaffrey on Sunday for 4-6 weeks.

    Freeman had been on the record that he didn't need to go to the highest bidder but that he simply "wants to win so bad." That's not likely to be the case very often with the Giants, but at least they aren't quite the mess that the Jets are.

    The 28-year-old Freeman will officially sign once he passes all the COVID-19 protocols, and being this is the year 2020 that's not a sure thing. Thus, Freeman almost surely won't suit up this week – he's also likely not close to game shape yet -- with the Giants presumably riding Dion Lewis and Wayne Gallman in the backfield. 

    New York is a 4-point home underdog Sunday vs. the injury-ravaged 49ers, who might have looked at Freeman, too, with running backs Raheem Mostert and Tevin Coleman both expected to miss multiple weeks.

    Which Freeman will the Giants be getting?  He was one of only five NFL running backs to accumulate more than 4,000 total yards from scrimmage from 2015-17 but hasn't been the same since in part due to injuries. Freeman was limited to two games in 2018 with Atlanta, and Pro Football Focus ranked him 55th of 61 running backs (min. 60 snaps) in 2019 when Freeman averaged a career-low 3.6 yards per carry. The Falcons cut him loose this past winter with three years and $21 million left on his contract.

    Who wins every NFL game this week? And which teams cover more than 50 percent of the time? Get picks here from the SportsLine Projection Model, which simulates every NFL game 10,000 times and ranked in the Top 10 on NFLPickWatch three of the past four years on straight-up NFL picks.

    SportsLine Staff

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