Projecting New York Giants' Most Heated Roster Battles This Offseason
If competition brings out the best in everyone, then theoretically the New York Giants should be unstoppable this coming season.
Before they can show whether they are indeed unstoppable, they need to wrap up a few pieces of unfinished business. First, they must get through the rest of the offseason with no major injuries.
Second, those players who are about to engage in competitions for either starting jobs or roster spots need to lay the foundation now, during the non-contact drills, so that come time when training camp opens and the pads eventually go on, these competitions can get off to a quick start.
Where will some of the “must-see” competitions take palce on the Giants this year?
Let’s run down the list of positions, ranked in reverse order of significance, where the battles promise to be among the hottest this summer.
Each slide will also attempt to project the outcome of the battle based on information currently known to be true at this time.
7. Safety
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There’s likely little debate that Landon Collins will be one of the Giants' two starting safeties this year.
The identity of the other starting safety is still to be determined from a candidate pool that includes veterans Josh Gordy, Bennett Jackson, Cooper Taylor and Nat Berhe.
Jackson, who is converting from cornerback to safety and coming back from microfracture surgery, probably isn’t a realistic option just yet.
Taylor, a Giants’ fifth-round draft pick in 2013, has spent chunks of his first two seasons on injured reserve, losing valuable opportunities to gain experience in the process.
Still, when he has been on the field, he actually hasn’t been too bad. Last summer, Taylor played almost exclusively at free safety, taking 104 defensive snaps.
He finished with 10 tackles in three preseason games and posted a respectable 50.0 NFL rating in coverage despite allowing 83.3 percent of the pass targets thrown against him to be completed.
Berhe is an interesting candidate for the other starting safety job. By the way, defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo told reporters last week he’s not yet classifying the safeties as “free” and “strong.”
Berhe told me and Ed Valentine during a March edition of our Big Blue Chat podcast that he’s comfortable playing in the box and up high.
Based on his limited body of work during last year’s preseason, Berhe, who did indeed play both safety spots, allowed just one reception (out of three pass targets) for 19 yards and only one yard after the catch.
That's encouraging, but again, it’s a limited body of work on which Berhe has to build.
Gordy? Spagnuolo mentioned him as a possible slot cornerback candidate in his press briefing with reporters last week, so it wouldn’t be surprising if Gordy ends up as a jack-of-all-trades for that defense.
6. Linebackers
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Another position where the Giants might have to play around with numbers is at linebacker.
Currently, they have six players who are front-runners for roster spots. Those include Jon Beason, Devon Kennard, Jameel McClain, Jonathan Casillas, J.T. Thomas and Mark Herzlich.
Whether they keep six or five probably will depend on the injury situation. It’s well-documented that Beason has a lengthy injury history that understandably makes it difficult to count on him for 16 games.
If he comes through camp unscathed, can the Giants get by with five linebackers and use the spot that might have otherwise gone to a sixth LB at another position?
That wouldn’t be surprising; the only question is who would be the odd man out?
Assuming that everyone is healthy—again, a risky assumption—the one who might have the biggest mountain to climb is Herzlich.
Herzlich, who signed a two-year deal in the offseason to remain, had his best season last year on defense, where he started eight games at strong-side linebacker.
He finished with a healthy 11.4 grade in run support, a strength in his game so long as he doesn’t have to chase guys down, and an overall 2.0 grade from Pro Football Focus.
Here is the problem with Herzlich. While he can list middle linebacker among the positions he can play, he wasn’t effective in that role in 2013, which likely led to the Giants making a rare in-season trade for Beason to begin with.
Also, while Herzlich is a decent special teams player, last year he finished with a minus-3.5 grade in that area, including a minus-2.0 grade on punt coverage.
Those negative grades were the first time in his career that he has had a negative grade on special teams and could work against him if a new crop of players who take a passion to special teams emerges this summer.
5. Tight Ends
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When an undrafted free agent not only receives a maximum signing bonus of $5,000 but is guaranteed $5,000 of his base salary for his rookie season, as Jordan Raanan of NJ Advance Media reported was the case with rookie tight end Matt LaCosse, that is something that bears watching in a roster battle.
The Giants tight ends—Larry Donnell, Daniel Fells and Adrien Robinson—last year combined for 861 receiving yards (19.2 percent of the Giants’ total passing game yardage) and 11 touchdowns (36.6 percent).
While those numbers aren’t bad production, one of the things that offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo couldn’t do much of last year with the tight ends was line any of them up in the slot.
According to Pro Football Focus, the Giants tight ends were targeted just 25 times from the slot last year, with 19 receptions for 175 yards, one touchdown and one dropped pass.
A prospect who could potentially change that, if he makes the 53-man roster, is LaCosse, who lined up in-line, in the slot, in the backfield and split wide in college, achieving success in whatever roles asked of him.
LaCosse finished his four-year career with 397 yards on 38 receptions and six touchdowns. Where he really stood out, though, was as a blocker. LaCosse, who told me for Inside Football that blocking was his first love, was primarily used as a blocker in his junior season.
That year, according to the Fighting Illini 2013 season stats (LaCosse’s junior season), the Naperville, Illinois, native helped pave the way for a rushing attack that averaged 4.1 yards per attempt and an average of 139.0 rushing yards per game.
If LaCosse shows he can block at this level and work from various spots in the offense, he has a good chance of sticking.
But at whose expense?
The most logical conclusion would be Fells, a veteran journeyman who turns 32 years old in September and was re-signed during the initial wave of free agency to a one-year, veteran-minimum deal, according to Over the Cap.
The Giants presumably want to get younger across the board, so while a case might be made for Robinson being on the bubble given his lack of production to date, it would not be surprising if he gets another season to prove his worth and Fells ends up the odd man out if LaCosse shines.
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4. Running Backs
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If history repeats itself and the injury bug stays away, the Giants will probably keep four running backs and one fullback.
Three of the four running backs are projected to be Rashad Jennings, Andre Williams and Shane Vereen, with Henry Hynoski as the fullback.
The fourth running back spot will come down to Orleans Darkwa or undrafted free-agent rookie Akeem Hunt.
Last year, the Giants plucked Darkwa off Miami’s practice squad, and he didn’t disappoint. Although he was used sparingly, Darkwa picked up the playbook rather quickly in the 29 snaps on offense he took.
So how did Darkwa do? He ran the ball five times, picking up 21 yards, (4.2 yards-per-carry average), but the stat to really take note of was he far exceeded any Giants running back last year in yards gained after initial contact (4.6) per rushing attempt.
Hunt, the rookie out of Purdue, is no slouch in the production department either. He averaged 5.5 yards per carry in four years, nearly cracking the 1,000-yard rushing mark in 2014 when he ran for 949 yards on 173 carries, and put up 8.4 yards per reception as a receiver out of the backfield.
As it’s unlikely that the fourth running back might get a lot of time with the offense if the guys ahead of them are healthy, this battle will likely come down to who has a better showing on special teams.
Hunt has returned kickoffs, but with return specialist Dwayne Harris on board, it would be surprising if he doesn’t start the season in that role.
3. Defensive Ends
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Assuming Jason Pierre-Paul signs his franchise tender or a long-term contract by the start of training camp, New York will have six defensive ends—Pierre-Paul, George Selvie, Robert Ayers Jr., Damontre Moore, Kerry Wynn and Owa Odighizuwa—who have the greatest chance of making the 53-man roster.
Of those six, at least four, and perhaps five, will make the final cut.
Who has a realistic chance?
Let's focus just on this year and put aside the fact that the contracts of Ayers, Pierre-Paul and Selvie will end after the 2015 season.
The likely locks are Pierre-Paul, Odighizuwa, Ayers and Moore, the final two being locks if both are over their respective offseason ailments (more on that in just a bit).
If the Giants keep five defensive ends, it might come down to whether the coaches feel they need more run-stoppers or pass-rushers.
Given the Giants’ struggles against the run last season in which they allowed opponents 135.1 yards per game (30th in the NFL), they might want to load up on run-stoppers.
The other question that needs to be answered is where Ayers and Moore are in their respective rehabs.
In early February, Jordan Raanan of NJ Advance Media characterized Ayers’ pectoral injury as being “torn badly.”
ESPN's Josina Anderson, meanwhile, reported that Ayers' injury did not require surgery, though it is unclear if Ayers had a change of heart regarding how to treat his injury.
If Ayers isn’t ready to go by training camp, that would obviously help clarify the picture.
The same can be said about Moore, whom Paul Schwartz of the New York Post reported had a clean-up procedure on one of his shoulders this offseason and whom Steve Spagnuolo said he wished was in attendance at the team facility this spring.
Don't count out Wynn, an undrafted free agent from last year who opened some eyes once he got on the field, from the picture either.
Although Wynn struggled in rushing the passer, he was actually the second-highest-graded Giants defensive end against the run, finishing with a 2.5 grade in 60 run-defense snaps.
How will it all shake out? An early guess is the Giants will go with five defensive ends, and those five will be Pierre-Paul, Moore, Wynn, Odighizuwa and Selvie, with Ayers possibly landing on the PUP list.
2. Defensive Tackles
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A quick look at the Giants’ defensive tackle spot shows a number of guys who can play that penetrator role (albeit some better than others) and not many who are true pluggers.
That kind of imbalance could lead to one of the underrated roster battles of camp, a battle that will see Markus Kuhn and Cullen Jenkins try to stick on a roster where Johnathan Hankins and Jay Bromley are locks.
On paper, the 34-year-old Jenkins appears to have the edge over Kuhn for two reasons. First, while not a true plugger, Jenkins has played that role in the past. He can also play defensive end in a pinch, so his versatility makes him invaluable.
Kuhn, a hard worker, had the best run-stop percentage of all of the Giants’ defensive interior linemen who took at least 100 snaps last season. Per Pro Football Focus, he finished with a 7.8 run-stop percentage.
With that said, PFF was unforgiving in its grading of Kuhn, who tends to absorb blocks rather than dish out the punishment, as a run-stopper, giving him a negative grade in that category in all but two games last season.
To be clear, Jenkins probably isn’t the long-term answer given his age and that he’s in the final year of his contract, but if it comes down to him or Kuhn, it makes more sense to keep Jenkins given his versatility.
1. Slot Cornerback
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Not that anyone needed confirmation of this ensuing battle, but Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, in his first public press briefing with reporters, admitted that the identity of the slot corner back is someone “we need to identify.”
Currently, the incumbent at that position is cornerback Trumaine McBride, who stepped in for the injured Walter Thurmond III last year after Week 2.
McBride, who saw his season end early due to a broken hand, played 117 snaps as the slot cornerback last season, according to Pro Football Focus. He finished with a 95.3 NFL rating, which put him eighth (out of 12) Giants defensive backs who lined up as the slot cornerback last season.
Per Spagnuolo, McBride’s competition for the slot cornerback spot will include Josh Gordy, who was signed as a free agent in the offseason, and Mike Harris, who played it for the Giants last year.
Others who could see time in the slot might include Chykie Brown, Bennett Jackson and Chandler Fenner.
This race has a ways to go before it’s settled.
All advanced stats and analytics via Pro Football Focus, unless otherwise noted.
Patricia Traina covers the Giants for Inside Football, the Journal Inquirer and Sports Xchange. All quotes and information were obtained firsthand for this article unless otherwise sourced.
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