Micah McFadden returns to the Giants, healthy and ready to play for John Harbaugh

NEW YORK (AP) — Much has changed since Micah McFadden last played for the New York Giants.

They lost 13 of 17 games including the season opener, during which he got hurt 11 snaps in, and overhauled their entire staff, with John Harbaugh taking over as coach and Dennard Wilson running the defense. Plenty more additions are coming, but McFadden on Wednesday signed a one-year deal worth up to $5.75 million to return, eager to show what he can do after recovering from a Lisfranc injury to his right foot.

“I had spoke with the coaching staff and some people in the building over the weekend, and I knew that there was a possibility that they wanted me back, and I was excited to hear that from them,” McFadden said on a video call with reporters. “I’m excited to be back. I’m excited to play with everybody that’s been here and the guys that we’ve already brought in this offseason and continue to bring in.”

McFadden, 26, is among the holdovers, a homegrown prospect who has been with the team since getting drafted in the fifth round in 2022. The newcomers on defense include fellow linebacker Tremaine Edmunds and defensive backs Greg Newsome and Ar'Darius Washington.

Along with tight end Isaiah Likely and fullback Patrick Ricard on offense and All-Pro punter Jordan Stout on special teams, Washington also is following Harbaugh to the Giants from Baltimore.

Edge rushers Brian Burns and Abdul Carter are not going anywhere, but the inside linebacker position is getting a makeover. Team captain Bobby Okereke was released in a move that saves salary cap space, and Edmunds signed a three-year, $36 million contract as part of filling the void.

"Bringing in Tremaine I think was a great addition," McFadden said. “He’s a great player, great athlete, and I’m excited to get out on the field with him — just learn from him and learn this defense with him and kind of put this thing together.”

New York ranked 28th out of 32 teams on defense in 2025, though there was some improvement down the stretch after interim coach Mike Kafka fired coordinator Shane Bowen and promoted Charlie Bullen for the remainder of the season.

McFadden hopes to fit into Wilson's scheme. He has some familiarity with it from assistants who have worked under Harbaugh. He does not expect to have any restrictions or limitations on his injured foot when spring workouts begin next month.

"Doing great — I’ve improved a lot," McFadden said. “I'm going to go out there, compete and go and try and win a starting job, go put my best foot forward during this offseason and into training camp and we’ll see where it falls after that.”

In the first big surprise of the offseason, Evan Neal is back. The 2022 seventh pick as a tackle who was moved to guard last season but never played because of a mix of losing a camp competition and getting injured figured to look for a change of scenery.

The regime change to Harbaugh, and an offense overseen by new coordinator Matt Nagy, is a different kind of fresh start for a player who's just 25. It remains to be seen whether his future with the organization is at guard or back at tackle, where he played at Alabama and during his first three NFL seasons.

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FILE - Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Rashod Bateman (7) runs with the ball past New York Giants linebacker Micah McFadden (41) during an NFL football game Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger, File)

FILE - New York Giants linebacker Micah McFadden (41) practices at the team's NFL football training camp in East Rutherford, N.J., Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Former Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman, who was convicted of lying during testimony at the OJ Simpson murder trial, has died. He was 74.

Fuhrman was one of the first two police detectives sent to investigate the 1994 killings of Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in Los Angeles. He reported finding a bloody glove at Simpson’s home but his credibility came under attack during the trial as the defense raised the prospect of racial bias.

Under cross-examination, Fuhrman testified that he had never made anti-Black racial slurs in the past decade, but a recording showed he had done so repeatedly.

Lynn Acebedo, the chief deputy coroner in Kootenai County, Idaho, said that Fuhrman died May 12. The county does not release the cause of death as a rule.

Alan Dershowitz, a prominent lawyer and law professor who was a legal strategist on Simpson’s defense “Dream Team,” said Fuhrman was a “much better detective than he was a witness.”

“He’s very smart, and you know, a very, very aggressive detective. Ultimately his actions helped us win the O.J. case because of his use of the ‘n’ word,” Dershowitz said Monday evening. “I got to know him later, after it was all over, and we had a cordial relationship.”

Fuhrman retired from the Los Angeles Police Department after Simpson’s 1995 acquittal. He subsequently moved to Idaho with his family and set up a 20-acre (eight-hectare) farm, raising chickens, goats, sheep and llamas.

In 1996, Fuhrman was charged with perjury and pleaded no contest. He later became a TV and radio commentator and wrote the book “Murder in Brentwood” about the killings.

A criminal-court jury found Simpson, a former star NFL running back and actor, not guilty of murder in 1995, but a separate civil trial jury found him liable in 1997 for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to relatives of Brown and Goldman. He served nine years in prison on unrelated charges and died in Las Vegas of prostate cancer in 2024 at the age of 76.

Fuhrman’s father left when he was 7 years old, and Fuhrman often cared for his younger brother while his mother worked. As an adult, he joined the Marines and then the Los Angeles Police Department.

Golden reported from Seattle.

FILE - In this June 15, 1995 file photo, O.J. Simpson, left, grimaces as he tries on one of the leather gloves prosecutors say he wore the night his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were murdered in a Los Angeles courtroom. (AP Photo/Sam Mircovich, Pool, File)

FILE - Los Angeles Police Department Det. Mark Fuhrman, foreground, and Superior Court Judge Lance Ito, rear, crane their heads to look at an overhead monitor during the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial, Friday, March 10, 1995, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

FILE - Los Angeles Police Detective Mark Fuhrman shows the jury in the O.J. Simpson double murder trial evidence during testimony Friday, March 10, 1995, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, Pool, File)