2020 was not the ideal year for former New York Giants OLB Markus Golden – at least before his trade back to the Cardinals. Golden started out with the Giants after not finding another team in free agency, and came back to them as their sacks leader from 2019. It looked like Golden was poised to have a similar performance due to a lackluster pass rush for the Giants, but instead it was Leonard Williams that stepped up in the new system and Golden fell to the wayside.
Golden would only register 1.5 sacks with the Giants in 2020 and hardly made an impact in the tackling game either, as one of the few players on the defense from last season that didn’t benefit from the change to defensive coordinator Patrick Graham.