New York Giants Who've Turned Heads in Offseason Workouts
The spring OTAs are just the very start of what will be a lengthy evaluation process for the New York Giants' coaching staff.
Thanks to CBA rules which prohibit contact drills, which limit workouts to certain times and which mandate that full pads be left in storage until summer training camp, it’s hard to get a full sense of where every player currently stands.
However, in watching the skill players and the individual unit drills, it’s possible to gain a sense as to which players are turning heads at this very early stage.
Here’s a look at five such players who have stood out for all the right reasons.
QB Eli Manning
1 of 5
This time last year, things weren’t looking so rosy for starting quarterback Eli Manning.
Not only was he healing up from ankle surgery, but he was also in the midst of learning a new offensive system that primarily required him to forget everything he had learned in 10 years of pro football and start from scratch.
He looked lost—very lost. As did the rest of the team. Never one who has been a strong practice player to begin with, when Manning did get back on the field after his surgery, he struggled so much that people began to wonder if a West Coast offense was a fit.
Well the good news is he did, and as he is about to enter his second year in this system. Manning has never looked sharper with his decisions and with throwing the ball in a spring workout.
“We are way ahead in terms of that,” head coach Tom Coughlin said of the offense.
“The familiarity as the different installations go and the familiarity by the players, at least the guys that have been here, so what we are talking about here is obvious. There is a lot of information being thrown at them. They seem to being handling it well.”
That includes Manning, who, despite working behind a brand-new offensive line, said having an entire offseason to reflect on the first year of the McAdoo offense and prepare for the second year has been big.
“It was important having this last month to watch the film, talk a lot about the mechanics, the footwork [and] be able to go outside with him and work on a lot of drill work,” Manning told reporters.
“A lot of it is stuff I wasn’t able to do last year. I was coming off the ankle surgery, I had a new offense—a lot of things going through the mind, trying to figure out concepts.
“This year, I understand the concepts. I’m still working on it, but I’m concentrating on the footwork and the mechanics and the timing of everything. It was great to have that this year and kind of get back to the basics of everything. I feel comfortable. I feel real good right now.”
He also looks real good in practice, which bodes well for the offense moving forward.
TE Jerome Cunningham
2 of 5
Of all the position battles set to unfold this summer, one of the most intriguing right now will be the one at tight end, which will pit the trio of Adrien Robinson, Daniel Fells and Larry Donnell—the tight ends last season—in competition for roster spots with youngsters Jerome Cunningham, Will Tye and Matt LaCosse.
With Donnell having missed some OTAs due to tendinitis in his Achilles, Cunningham, who was on the practice squad last year, has been taking full advantage of his snaps with the starters.
After a bumpy first week, Cunningham seemed to find his groove, telling Dan Salamone of Giants.com that he has finally begun to settle into the offense.
“The first week didn’t go so well, wasn’t going so smooth, but the second week, [I’m] starting to get comfortable with the offense and starting to move around a lot faster,” Cunningham said.
Cunningham, who considers his receiving skills further along than his run blocking at this point, has been sharp in OTAs.
He has caught every catchable pass thrown his way, doing a nice job on one deep pass up the seam of splitting the safeties and making the grab.
A chiseled 6’3”, 250-pound specimen, Cunningham, out of Southern Connecticut State, joined the Giants midway through training camp last summer, which forced him to learn things on the fly.
Now that he will have a full offseason under his belt, Cunningham told me for Inside Football that his priority has been to fix his run blocking skills so that he can compete as more of a complete tight end.
“It’s technique—hand placement and pad level: a combination of both,” he said. “You want to go fast, but sometimes when you go too fast, you pop up and your pad level rises and your feet get out of place. So it’s all about practicing and repetition to make sure that it becomes like a second nature. I’m just trying to get more comfortable at it right now.”
He’s certainly getting there based on how, as of right now, he’s ahead of returning veteran Fells as far as getting reps against the starting defense. Once the pads go on, though, that will tell the true story of just how far he has really come.
S Landon Collins
3 of 5
If you are still worried about the Giants’ safety situation, Landon Collins’ play should soon put your mind at ease.
The progress made by the rookie out of Alabama is, without question, noticeable. Not only does he not make the same mistake twice, but he is also starting to emerge as a leader out there on the field in terms of making calls.
“He can play in the middle of the field. He can play in the deep half as well as come down and be a physical force in the tackle box,” head coach Tom Coughlin said of Collins during the rookie minicamp last month.
So far, so good for the Giants’ second-round draft pick. Collins has mostly lined up on the strong side of the formation, though he hasn’t been strictly a box safety.
He’s been taking good angles to the ball carrier and while he’s still feeling his way around in pass coverage a bit—perhaps the result of not wanting to charge too hard given the non-contact nature of the practices—it’s hard not to see his confidence growing each day.
Although the Giants still need to sort out what they’ll be doing at the other safety—Cooper Taylor has been getting the bulk of the snaps with the starters while Nat Berhe sits out with a calf injury—if Collins continues to progress by leaps and bounds, he’ll afford defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo numerous options based on the matchups.
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RB Shane Vereen
4 of 5
Remember the days of Tiki Barber?
You know, the days when Barber used to take a little dink of a pass and turn it into a slam-dunk of a gain, and when he used to be an extra brick wall in pass protection?
Well those days appear to be coming back in style for the Giants, except it’s newcomer Shane Vereen who will provide that threat out of the backfield and that extra layer of pass protection on third down that the Giants have long been searching for since the days of Barber.
Despite playing in an extended season last year for the Patriots, who of course won the Super Bowl, Vereen has looked no worse for the wear this spring. He’s rested, quick and seems to have picked up the basics of this offense very well.
He’s also proven to be a good match for the newly revamped Giants’ linebacker unit, a unit that added some speed with the hopes that they’ll be better able to run sideline to sideline to keep up with passes thrown to the backs in the backfield.
Vereen has given the linebackers a run for their money so far in OTAs, and he has correctly identified his blocking assignments in drills.
Simply put, so far he has been everything the Giants hoped he would be when they signed him to a three-year, $12.35 million contract in the offseason.
“He is a solid, solid young man. A very positive young man who’s happy to be here and looks forward to contributing,” said head coach Tom Coughlin.
“When we brought him in, we thought here is a guy that catches the ball out of the backfield and would be another obvious weapon that would have to be defended, as well as some of the other people we have here.”
Thus far, Vereen has shared reps as a receiver out of the backfield primarily with Rashad Jennings, which has given the Giants a nice combination punch that should keep opposing defenses on high alert.
WR Corey Washington
5 of 5
Last year, receiver Corey Washington was not happy with how his rookie season went.
After lighting things up in the preseason—he was tied for first place in the NFL with four touchdown receptions with Oakland’s Brice Butler—Washington disappeared from the Giants’ landscape, earning just 57 offensive snaps, according to Pro Football Focus.
In retrospect, the signs were there all along. Despite lighting things up, he never did receive a promotion up the depth chart during the preseason, and his apparent drop from the scene was tied into his lack of contribution on special teams, even though Washington insisted to Tom Rock of Newsday that all he did on special teams was block.
The good news is that Washington seems to have a new outlook on what it’s going to take to make the 53-man roster again, and yes, that includes contributing on special teams.
He has received snaps as a gunner and has attacked the role with as much vigor as the rules of the offseason program allow.
Oh, and he also continues to make some really nice catches on the offense, albeit most of them coming against the second- and third-string defenses.
With Victor Cruz’s status still up in the air and now with Odell Beckham Jr.’s hamstring issue popping up yet again, there’s a golden opportunity for receivers, such as Washington, to convince the coaching staff this summer that he’s worthy of additional snaps against competition that, for the most part, probably won’t be on NFL rosters this coming fall.
Patricia Traina covers the Giants for Inside Football, the Journal Inquirer and Sports Xchange. All quotes and information were obtained firsthand unless otherwise sourced.
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