New York Giants' Rookie Grades at Season's Three-Quarter Mark
The fine folks on Madison Avenue would like to have us believe ‘tis the season to be jolly.
With all due respect to those who dream up new gimmicks and catchphrases to distract us long enough to open our wallets, there is not much for New York Giants fans to celebrate this season.
The team is on its way to its second straight season with a won-loss record guaranteed to be under .500.
The injuries are piling up at an alarming rate of one lost player per week.
There are questions galore about the future of the leadership and if this team is about to undergo its most massive transition since the end of the 2003 season.
Did I mention that the Philadelphia Eagles, arguably New York’s biggest division rival, seems well on their way to winning the NFC East?
All might seem lost for the Giants faithful, but there have been some slight glimmers of hope that have coaxed a smile or two this season.
Back in May, general manager Jerry Reese and staff handpicked seven young men in the annual NFL draft to become a part of the team’s fabric.
While Reese’s draft shortcomings have been well-documented, the class of 2014 actually looks as though the Giants management finally got more right than wrong.
Let’s break down how each pick has done through three-quarters of the 2014 season in an attempt to find some holiday cheer.
Round 1 (12th Overall): WR Odell Beckham Jr., LSU
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Things didn’t start out very promising for receiver Odell Beckham Jr.’s rookie season.
Stricken by a lingering hamstring strain, he missed most of training camp, all of the preseason and the first month of the season.
But hey, who needs training camp when you have hands that are like flypaper, when co-captain Antrel Rolle (h/t Paul Schwartz of the New York Post) singles you out as the only guy playing with an attitude during a disheartening loss and when you make one of the greatest catches in the history of modern game?
The scary thing about Beckham, who has shot to the top of the Giants’ depth chart at receiver, thanks to the season-ending loss of Victor Cruz and the season-long inconsistency of Rueben Randle, is that the young man can still get a lot better in his craft.
“There are some areas,” quarterback Eli Manning told reporters last week via conference call. “He is doing a lot of things really well in his route running and winning. There are always a few things, just on the depth of a couple routes, being patient on a couple of routes, the conversions of what the route is versus certain technique and coverages.
“There are always a few little things like that show up on the game film, which happens to young receivers sometimes, but overall I have been impressed with not just his playmaking, but his understanding of the offense, and playing at a high level and doing some of the little things really well.”
Beckham’s rookie season will probably be best known for “the catch,” but it also needs to be noted that he has had three 100-yard games in his last five and is one touchdown reception behind tight end Larry Donnell, the team leader who has been in the starting lineup since Day 1, unlike Beckham. Randall Liu, NFL Director of NFC Football Communications, also highlighted another Beckham record:
".@Giants WR Odell Beckham Jr (@OBJ_3) is 1st rookie in @NFL history to have 5 games w/ 90+ rec yards in a calendar month
— Randall Liu (@RLiuNFL) December 1, 2014"
Grade: A
Round 2 (43rd Overall): OL Weston Richburg, Colorado State
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It says a lot about a rookie who is not a first-round pick when the coaching staff trusts him to start from day one.
It says even more about that rookie when the position he is asked to start at is one that he has little to no experience playing.
Such is the case with offensive lineman Weston Richburg, drafted to be the Giants’ starting center of the future, but who, due to injuries along the offensive line and Chris Snee's retirement, was pressed into starting action at left guard.
Think about that for a moment. Giants head coach Tom Coughlin has historically preferred to plug veterans in at starting positions ahead of rookies because he favors the experience factor.
Yet there was Richburg, who has started all but one game this season—that due to a benching to give the overwhelmed rookie a little timeout—starting ahead of Brandon Mosley, a three-year veteran.
While it hasn’t been all roses and sunshine for Richburg—per Pro Football Focus (subscription required), the rookie’s minus-13.4 overall grade is the third-worst on the offense, just ahead of fellow offensive linemen John Jerry and J.D. Walton—there have been some encouraging signs.
First, this rookie has a nasty streak that this offensive line hasn’t always had. He might not win every battle, but he stays with his man to the whistle and shows a dogged determination that if every offensive lineman played with, the unit might not be as shaky as it is.
Second, he’s a quick learner—that much was evident when he was given the starting job at a position where, according to his NFL draft profile, he only played once and that being at right guard instead of left guard.
Given his positives, the natural question that is probably on everyone’s mind is why wasn’t Richburg able to beat out Walton, whose play hasn’t been as consistent as initially hoped for, for the starting center job?
There are two likely reasons for this.
One, Richburg, while by no means a small man, doesn’t quite have the ideal NFL girth or strength necessary to hold up in the interior.
That will come once he is able to put in a solid offseason in the team’s weight-training and conditioning program.
The second, and perhaps most important reason is a lack of experience at the pro level. With the Giants installing a new offense, the coaches likely wanted an experienced center to be in the thick of things regarding making the protection calls so that this new system could come together quickly and with as few hiccups as possible.
By lining up next to Walton, Richburg received probably the best indoctrination to his future role with the team as can be: He got the chance to see different defensive looks and scenarios up close and personal.
While the line calls and protections are discussed in the classroom, there is no substitute for experience.
Yes, Richburg is headed for apposition change next season, but the experience he gained this year coupled with his still untapped potential and his demonstrated cerebral ability make him a key part of the team’s foundation moving forward.
Grade: B
Round 3 (74th Overall): DT Jay Bromley, Syracuse
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When a player is chosen within the top 100 picks of the draft, he should ideally be on the field quite a bit, especially as the team enters the second half of its season when injuries start to limit those ahead of him.
That hasn’t been the case for defensive tackle Jay Bromley, who like Johnathan Hankins, and ex-Giants Linval Joseph and Barry Cofield, is apparently a one-year development project.
This year, Bromley failed to earn a game-day uniform in seven games and didn’t play against the San Francisco 49ers, despite finally getting a game uniform.
For those keeping score at home, Pro Football Focus (subscription required) has Bromley playing in 50 snaps on defense, not surpassing 16 snaps in any one game.
That’s not necessarily a positive development considering Cullen Jenkins has been battling a calf strain the last several weeks and Markus Kuhn, a seventh-round pick in 2012, had only 11 games to his name prior to the start of the season.
Ten of Kuhn’s games came in his rookie season, where he graded out negatively in both run defense and the pass rush, per PFF.
Getting back to Bromley, he started out strong in the preseason this yea but faded in both the pass rush and in run defense in his final two games.
Given that he is still a raw prospect who hasn’t played much, it’s probably too soon to give him a grade, though there is a modicum of amazement that he hasn’t been able to unseat Kuhn for some of those game snaps.
Grade: Incomplete
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Round 4 (113th Overall): RB Andre Williams, Boston College
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The Giants looked as though they got a huge steal in the fourth round in the draft when Boston College’s Andre Williams, last year’s national-rushing-yardage leader at the college level, fell into their laps.
They might be on to something, though it is going to take probably the rest of this season, all of the 2015 offseason and all of the 2015 preseason for Williams to come into his own.
A powerful runner who came with limited experience as a receiver out of the backfield and limited pass-blocking opportunities, Williams had to grow quickly into those roles as a member of the Giants.
He’s still growing. Per Pro Football Focus (subscription required), Williams’ pass-blocking grade has been steady all season—he is currently at 1.6.
That right there is a reason why the coaches have probably been a little less squeamish about putting him on the field given the emphasis they place on protecting the quarterback.
As for the other two-thirds of his game, Williams, as noted previously, still needs some work. He is averaging 2.9 yards per carry (133 carries for 392 yards). All five of his rushing touchdowns have come from inside the opponent’s 5-yard line.
The problem with Williams is he hasn’t really shown the vision or the quick decision-making process to hit creases that close almost as quickly as they open, which means he’s leaving yards on the field when asked to run outside of the red zone. That, however, should come with more game reps.
As a receiver, he has shown steady, but slow improvement, though again, he still has room to grow in that area.
Per PFF, he has been targeted 17 times this season and has 11 receptions for 86 yards. He also has two dropped passes.
The bottom line with Williams is that he is not a No. 1 running back right now—to have expected anything differently would have been to expect too much.
He does, however, complement starter Rashad Jennings very well in that Williams, who by the way has one more rushing touchdown than Jennings, seems to be settling in as the goal-line back, which is just as important of a role as any.
Grade: C+
Round 5 (152nd Overall): S Nat Berhe, San Diego State
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Considering that safety Nat Berhe came into the NFL with limited special teams experience, or so his NFL draft profile stated, he’s been a rather solid contributor in that regard.
Per Pro Football Focus (subscription required), his seven solo tackles currently leads the team (Damontre Moore leads the Giants’ special teams with eight total tackles, but he has six solos.)
Defensively, Berhe has only received 23 snaps, the majority of which came in coverage, where he’s yet to be targeted on a pass, according to PFF.
While that doesn’t sound like many snaps given that 12 games are now in the book, Berhe is a young talent in the making who is still learning the game.
“Nat is growing,” safeties coach David Merritt told reporters during the bye week when asked about Berhe’s development.
“One of the things I said a little earlier was that in the meeting rooms, while we are going over our install meetings, I make sure to call on him.
“When we were going through our correction meetings, I called and made corrections through my safeties and directed them right at Nat and made sure he understood exactly the correction and what we need to do differently. He is able to understand it and be able to spit it back to me, which has definitely been a breath of fresh air for a rookie to be able to do that.”
Berhe should see an increase in reps next year should the Giants decide to move on from Antrel Rolle, Stevie Brown and Quintin Demps.
Grade: Incomplete
Round 5 (Compensatory, 174th Overall): LB Devon Kennard, USC
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Off the field, linebacker Devon Kennard is a typical NFL rookie who is just taking everything in.
On the field, however, the son of former NFL offensive lineman and Super Bowl XXX champion Derek Kennard is a hungry student of the game who loves the physical nature that comes with playing the linebacker position.
Within the halls of the Quest Diagnostics Training Center, where the Giants train year-round, Kennard has earned himself quite a few fans among his teammates.
The highest praise came from Jon Beason, who knows a thing or two about what a promising young linebacker looks like since he himself was one when he came out of Miami in 2007.
"Kennard is a monster-in-the-making. I think he’s going to be a good one," Beason told Inside Football (subscription required).
"He’s tough, strong and he prepares, and that’s what I love about him more than anything. You show me a young guy who understands the mental part is more important than the physical part, then the sky’s the limit."
It has certainly shown in his play. After posting 17 tackles, including nine stops for zero or negative yardage in the preseason, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required), Kennard, who missed three games with a hamstring strain, has been a steady performer.
A starter on the strong side the last three games, the rookie had his breakout party against the Jacksonville Jaguars last week, recording two sacks, two tackles and four stops for zero or negative yardage.
As he gains more experience, it wouldn’t be surprising if Kennard, who told me recently that he has started to get some snaps in the middle during practices, ultimately supplants Beason in that role.
Until then, it looks as though the Giants have finally drafted a linebacker who just might turn out to be a mid-round steal.
Grade: B+
Round 6 (187th Overall): CB Bennett Jackson, Notre Dame
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Touted as a special teams ace—he was named Notre Dame’s 2010 Special Teams Player of the Year—cornerback Bennett Jackson looked the part of an NFL player as far as his size and build were concerned.
The Hazlet, New Jersey, native gave it his all in training camp. However, his technique was rough around the edges from Day 1, and it didn’t really improve as camp and the preseason went on.
Per Pro Football Focus (subscription required), he finished the preseason with a 131.7 NFL rating—not good at all for a defensive back in coverage.
He allowed 70 percent of the passes thrown his way to be completed for 91 yards, including a long of 33 yards, and he allowed one touchdown catch.
To his credit, he showed toughness in trying to fight his way through what head coach Tom Coughlin described for reporters at the time as being “a significant ankle injury,” but in the end, he was waived and signed to the practice squad.
Somewhere along the line, Jackson suffered a significant knee injury that landed him on the team’s practice-squad/injured-reserve list in mid-October.
Before then, Jackson apparently was never considered to be brought up from the practice squad when Walter Thurmond III was lost for the season due to a pectoral tear, while Jayron Hosley, who had had a poor training camp and preseason, served a four-game suspension.
While a player can’t be blamed for injuries, if Jackson had been able to develop, maybe the Giants' depth at cornerback wouldn’t be so shaky right now.
Grade: Incomplete
Patricia Traina covers the Giants for Inside Football and TheSportsXchange. All quotes and information obtained firsthand unless otherwise sourced. Follow me on Twitter @Patricia_Traina.
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