New York Giants notes: Assessing Nick Folk

Here are a notes of interest to New York Giants fans for an off-season Friday morning.

• We have known for a few days that former Dallas Cowboy kicker Nick Folk would be working out for the Giants. ESPN's Matt Mosley offers an interesting assessment of Folk.
  
  You had to know that teams were going to start evaluating Folk at some point. He was one of the top kickers in the league in '07 and '08 for the Dallas Cowboys.
  
  Folk was very accurate (46-of-53) during those seasons and he was incredibly clutch. But in '09, he suddenly lost his mojo, missing seven of 11 attempts before being released in late December. Some people in the media think the Cowboys erred by not stashing Folk on injured reserve. The fact that he was coming off hip surgery in '09 would've legitimized the move.
  
  My take: At his best, Folk is better than Lawrence Tynes. The question is, do you gamble on him ever returning to his Pro Bowl form?
  

• If you missed it, Mike Garafolo had a nice interview with Jonathan Goff Thursday. Goff, of course, is a possible replacement for Antonio Pierce at middle linebacker. MG asked him about the job.
  
  Asked if he thought he had shown enough last season to earn that role, he added, "I think any bit of experience that I’m going to get is very valuable to becoming a better player. I only hope, I’m going to strive, to get better as a football player all-around."
• ESPN's Mosley also assessed NFC East team draft needs a couple of days ago. No big surprise in that he expects the Giants to focus on defense and possibly offensive tackle.
• With the changes in free agency due to the likelihood of the uncapped year, some expect more trades this off-season. Michael Lombardi of the National Football Post assesses why trades are historically difficult to make in the NFL.
  
  Most teams are trading draft picks for players, so they’re not sure what they’re actually trading when they part with a pick. This uncertainty makes teams very reluctant to part with draft picks. The "player for player" trade in the NFL is not easy to pull off, especially when an organization has too many people involved in personnel. For example, you might want to trade a backup linebacker for a wide receiver who can help the team, but if you ask the linebackers coach, he’ll make the linebacker seem like Lawrence Taylor, virtually untradeable. So the player swap in the NFL is hard for many teams to execute.
  
  My take: I am a fan of trying to accumulate extra draft picks, not trading them away for veteran players. I have said it before, but I believe depth is critical in the NFL. You can't accumulate it without a stable of young talent acquired via the draft.
• With free agency looming, teams -- and fan bases -- are scouring the lists of potential free agents to find players who would help their teams. Clark Judge of CBS Sports offers a different kind of list -- big-name unrestricted free agents to avoid.

(E-mail Ed at bigblueview@gmail.com. Follow Big Blue View on Twitter.)