Here's how you know an NFL player's free agency is not playing out to plan: When their name is typed into Google, two of the top search results are headlines that read, "What is the deal with ..." and "What's going on with ..."

That's where Giants defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins finds himself Thursday, a week after the start of free agency and nine days since the beginning of the legal tampering period (not to mention the weeks since less-than-legal tampering began).

While the other top defensive tackles have now signed deals or appear to be wrapping up free agency visit tours, nothing has happened with Hankins.

No known visits, no substantial reports of interested teams, and barely any buzz or rumors at all.

What gives? According to The Miami Herald's Armando Salguero, Hankins' representation is telling teams Hankins wants a multi-year deal that pays him like a top-tier defensive tackle - a puzzling stance given there has been no sign such a demand is even remotely possible to be met.

From Salguero's column:

[Hankins] wants to get paid like a starting defensive tackle -- which means he wants a multi-year contract and wants to make $8 [million] a year, at minimum.

That's what the Hankins camp is telling every team when they call. That's what the Hankins camp told the Dolphins when they called way before I ever wrote his name.

(...)

Even though no other team is jumping to attention to snap Hankins off the free agency market, the Hankins camp is holding firm on the idea he deserves and is going to get a multi-year deal.

A brief explainer on how Hankins became a topic of discussion in South Florida: The Dolphins are in the market for a third defensive tackle. They hosted Dontari Poe, who has seemingly visited half the league in the past few days, on Wednesday. Poe left without a deal, as expected.

Poe is reportedly looking for a one-year deal similar to the one ex-Eagle Bennie Logan got to replace Poe in Kansas City. Miami is not interested in paying a third tackle $7-8 million a year. So, no go. But prior to Poe's visit, Salguero wrote a column suggesting Hankins would be a better target for the Dolphins.

After Poe visited, Salguero then followed up on the Hankins angle, reporting the Dolphins did kick the tires, but discovered there was no business to be done.

Back to Hankins. It's incredibly difficult to see how he, or anyone in his camp, can actually believe any one of 31 (of 32) teams would decide to hand him a multi-year deal worth $8 million annually a week into free agency. If a team was willing to make that type of investment in Hankins, it would have been made days ago. No general manager is going to wake up Thursday and suddenly feel compelled to spend big bucks on Hankins.

The only real move left for Hankins appears to be an acknowledgement the defensive tackle market never materialized after Nick Fairley and Brandon Williams were re-signed by the Saints and Ravens, respectively. Hankins should just take a one-year deal, and try again in 2018. Logan did it and Poe appears set to do it. Hankins can do it too, and squeeze as much money out of it as he can.

However, if Hankins is truly adamant about getting what he wants, one possibility, barring a unforeseen development, does remain: The Giants.

But can they? And would they still want to?

For the sake of the argument, assume the Giants would still like to bring Hankins back. Also assume they are open to the $8 million annual figure, even though a cheaper alternative likely awaits in the NFL Draft, and forget they would be investing an disproportionate amount of overall cap space into four defensive linemen (Jason Pierre-Paul, Olivier Vernon, Snacks and Hankins).

If there's a will, there's a way. Even though the Giants are strapped for salary cap space at the moment ($4.415 million officially, $2.65 million unofficially as of Wednesday), it wouldn't be too difficult to move money around and make room for Hankins. Cuts can be made, contracts can be restructured, the JPP deal can get hammered out, etc.

Fairley signed a four-year, $28 million deal in New Orleans with a 2017 cap hit of just $3 million. Williams, who will get $10.5 million a year on average from Baltimore, has a cap hit of just $6 million this season. The Giants would be able to massage the numbers to fit.

Then again, wouldn't the Giants have done all these things by now if they were so inclined?

Hankins could still get what he wants, and the Giants may still end up getting what they wanted before free agency began. That's anyone's guess at this point. What is clear, though, is Hankins' camp appears to have misread his market and situation, and the curious silence of the past week makes a lot more sense after this report.

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James Kratch may be reached at jkratch@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JamesKratch. Find our Giants coverage on Facebook.