New York Giants: Most Crucial Training-Camp Position Battles to Watch

Don’t look now, but New York Giants training camp is less than two weeks away from starting.

It’s a time for the coaches and the players to begin finalizing the playbook and personnel, commencing the team bonding and conducting competitions that are aimed at not only identifying the right personnel but also bringing out the best in the players.

While the Giants like to say they promote competition at every position, let’s be realistic. No one is likely to unseat quarterback Eli Manning or receiver Odell Beckham Jr.

However, there are always going to be some battles every year in camp, and this year is no different. So let’s sit back and preview those upcoming battles and try to anticipate what direction the team might be headed.

Safety

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Despite the signing of veteran Jeromy Miles, the Giants starting safety position is far from being set.

It’s assumed that Landon Collins, the team’s second-round draft pick, will be one of the starters. Although defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo told reporters during the rookie minicamp that he’s not going to designate a “free” or “strong” safety just yet, it wouldn’t be surprising if Collins' role mostly consists of run support and covering some of the shorter and intermediate-range passes.

As for the deep center fielder, that candidate will come from a group consisting of Nat Berhe, Cooper Taylor, Miles and Bennett Jackson.

Miles is the most experienced of the group, having played in 67 career games with three starts, two of which came last year.

While he doesn’t have eye-popping stats given his limited career snaps, Miles did have one of his best seasons last year for the Baltimore Ravens.

Per Pro Football Focus, Miles graded out with a 5.2 overall mark that included a healthy-looking 5.0 grade in coverage, an area where the Giants lacked last season.

Taylor took the bulk of the reps in the spring, and while he had his moments, it would stand to reason that if he wowed the coaches with his showing, perhaps they would have stood pat regarding what they had on the roster and not reached out to get Miles.

Berhe is a physical player who can run with the best of them; the question, though, is if his calf injury, the one that kept him sidelined throughout the spring, is finally 100 percent. It’s unclear as to how Berhe suffered the injury to start with, but certainly that’s something that the injury-plagued Giants will have to keep watch on.

Jackson has a great deal of heart and is a hard worker. However, he has a couple of things working against him. First, he is coming off a major knee injury that necessitated microfracture surgery. That means he lost a good chunk of his rookie season, even if he was just a practice-squad player.

Second, he is learning a new position when he really didn’t have much time to perfect his skills at the old one. Jackson could be best served with another stint on the practice squad this year so he can continue to learn the nuances of playing safety.

Slot Cornerback

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Of all the free-agent losses the Giants had this year, the biggest by far was the loss of slot cornerback Walter Thurmond.

Yes, Thurmond only played in two games for the Giants last season, barely enough to make any kind of impact. However, that didn’t take away from the fact that he was still an accomplished slot cornerback.

The Giants meanwhile failed to address that position in free agency, instead obviously preferring to see if someone from a group that includes incumbent Trumaine McBride, Mike Harris and Josh Gordy can get the job done.

That’s all well and good, but when the team’s defensive coordinator says that the team still has to work out its plans at that position, then you can probably expect a heated summer battle.

McBride would appear to be the incumbent going into camp. He was the one who stepped in for Thurmond following his season-ending pectoral tear. McBride, who despite being listed at 5’9”, 189 pounds, has surprised with his play since joining the Giants two years ago.

Last season before a broken hand ended his season early, he finished with a 3.0 in pass coverage, the second-best mark on the team behind cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, according to Pro Football Focus. In 2013, he also finished second on the team in pass coverage, scoring an 8.7 grade, also per PFF.

The problem is that McBride is in the final year of his contract and will be 30 on his next birthday. If the Giants want to get younger at that spot and potentially have someone who can man the position for more than one season, Mike Harris could be their man.

Last year, Harris was actually better than McBride in the slot, allowing just 66 percent of the pass targets thrown against him to be completed for 88 yards and no touchdowns.

McBride, on the other hand, gave up 80 percent of the pass targets thrown his way for 123 yards and one touchdown while playing in the slot.

Harris is also four years younger than McBride; as a still unproven commodity to the NFL, Harris has a great chance to continue evolving into a solid slot cornerback if he earns the reps and does something with them.

Tight End

Kathy Willens/Associated Press

The Giants reunited their three tight ends from last season once they re-signed exclusive-rights free agent Larry Donnell, the starter, and unrestricted free agent Daniel Fells.

However, the chance of that trio staying together for a second season is not guaranteed, not if youngsters such as Matt LaCosse, Jerome Cunningham and Will Tye have anything to say about it.

The most vulnerable of the returning three tight ends would appear to be Fells, a rather ironic occurrence considering that, per Pro Football Focus, he was the most consistent and the highest-graded of the group.

Unfortunately, Fells is also the oldest—he will be 32 by the time the upcoming season ends and is not likely a part of the long-term fabric of this team in the way LaCosse, Tye and Cunningham could be.

So who is Fells' primary competition from that group? If the veteran journeyman was the best blocker of the trio—and his Pro Football Focus grade would certainly support that—then it would only make sense to replace him with another strong blocker.

That candidate could be LaCosse, who played his college ball at Illinois and whose versatility—he can line up as an H-back, in the slot and in-line—could very well help his chances of sticking around.

What about Robinson, the fourth-round pick in the 2012 draft who for one reason or another hasn’t panned out. Might he be on the bubble if Cunningham, who flashed often with the starting unit in the spring, or Tye has a strong summer?

To quote general manager Jerry Reese, you never want to say never; however, Reese is also the same person who said that he believes in giving the draft picks a chance to fail before pushing them out the door.

Defensive End

Julio Cortez/Associated Press

The unfortunate Independence Day fireworks accident that cost defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul his right index finger has sent the Giants franchise scrambling.

Besides trying to get more information about their franchise player’s condition and potential rehab, New York, which was already set to conduct a competition for the starting defense end job previously held by Mathias Kiwanuka, who was cut at the start of the offseason, are facing the very real possibility of having to conduct a competition for both starting spots.

Although NFL.com’s Kim Jones reported that Pierre-Paul would probably be healed from his injuries in six weeks, which would put the calendar toward the end of August, that’s only part of the story.

It needs to be remembered that the 26-year-old defensive end has not participated in a lick of football all spring, that he is going to miss the entire training camp period and he’s probably not going to be allowed to lift weights or do much while his hand, which, also per Jones, includes a broken thumb, heals.

With that little dose of reality in place, the need for two new defensive ends is a very real problem for the Giants because one of those ends probably needs to be a solid run-stopper.

Based on last year’s Pro Football Focus grades, there were only two defensive ends on the team who graded positively against the run: Pierre-Paul and Kerry Wynn.  However, the coaching staff, when in need of a fill-in at defensive end, has often turned to veteran Cullen Jenkins, a defensive tackle.

The coaches could do so again until such time when they think Pierre-Paul will be ready to go.

However, with Pierre-Paul's long-term future with the team unclear, it might not be a bad idea for the Giants to see what they can get out of Damontre Moore and Owa Odighizuwa, both of whom could potentially adapt should defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo try some 3-4 fronts.

Offensive Line

Seth Wenig/Associated Press

Although the Giants mainly stayed with the same starting offensive line throughout the OTAs and the spring minicamp, that combination is in no way guaranteed to be on the field together on opening day.

The combination, for those who might have missed it, saw Ereck Flowers at left tackle, Justin Pugh at left guard, Weston Richburg at center, Geoff Schwartz at right guard and Marshall Newhouse at right tackle.

Of that group, Richburg and Schwartz seem to be the only two locked in to stay where they are. Ideally, Pugh would also stay where he is; however, the coaching staff had him taking snaps with the second-string offensive line at left tackle, an odd sight.

To back up a bit, the concern with the offensive line is at tackle, thanks to the pectoral injury starting left tackle Will Beatty suffered in a weight-room accident in May.

Beatty’s injury has forced the coaches to put Flowers, their first-round pick and future left tackle, at that critical position now, and to plug journeyman Newhouse in at right tackle, the position Flowers was originally projected to play while he worked to smooth out his technique.

Simply put, the Giants offensive line is one injury away at tackle from being declared a disaster area. Newhouse didn’t exactly impress during the spring, though, to be fair.

The players did not work with pads, which would preclude observers and the coaching staff from fully gauging just how bad off the team currently is regarding depth at that spot.

There are a few things the coaching staff can do when the team does report to camp. One is to see if Brandon Mosley can finally contribute at left guard, an occurrence that might allow them to shift Pugh back to tackle.

The problem with Mosley is that last year, despite supposedly being healthy, he was unable to unseat John Jerry at right guard, a fact that is a red flag.

The most likely scenario is that the Giants are going to add a veteran offensive guard/tackle to the roster from the waiver wire. In retrospect, they probably should have done more to address the offensive line a lot sooner.

To be fair, they couldn’t have seen the injury to Beatty coming, though the decision to roll the dice on Newhouse when other free agents such as Orlando Franklin and Joe Barksdale were out there was a curious one.

Unless otherwise noted, advanced analytics and player grades via Pro Football Focus.

Patricia Traina covers the Giants for Inside Football, the Journal Inquirer and Sports Xchange. All quotes and information were obtained firsthand unless otherwise sourced.

Follow @Patricia_Traina.