Kayvon Thibodeaux Outlines Objectives for Year 2

The Giants' pass rusher is focused on finishing his pass rushes and making more impactful plays.

There are many things that New York Giants outside linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux learned last season as a rookie.

One of the biggest lessons of all? Don't define expectations with numbers. 

"I had a number on (sacks) last year, and I figured out that the season is so long that you have to do it by game," Thibodeaux said after the Giants finished their fifth OTA Wednesday. 

"If I can make impactful plays like I was able to do and continue to win, no one will ever remember me. As long as we win, as long as I continue to play well, play for my teammates, I think I'll be good."

Thibodeaux came to this epiphany last year when he would go stretches of games without recording a sake. He then started to realize what was most important: making a play to help the team, even if it wasn't as impactful as a sack.

"When you go four sacks, four or five games with no sacks, you start to realize, 'Forget that number. What can I do to make a play?'" he asked. 

"Come the Baltimore game, it was like, 'Okay, I’ve got to make a play. I don't have time to think about the goals I had. I've got to go for something now.'"

Thibodeaux feels he had "a pretty good" rookie campaign, one that saw him finish with 49 tackles, four sacks, six tackles for a loss, 13 quarterback hits, two forced fumbles, and two fumble recoveries. 

He also won the NFC Defensive Player of the Week honors in Week 15 after playing his best game of the year against the Washington Commanders. Thibodeaux became just the second Giants' defensive rookie to win the award among the 51 defensive Player of the Week selections in the 39-year history of the award. 

But Thibodeaux believes he "left a lot of space to grow," which is where his focus is this year.

"Getting sacks, finishing--there were a lot of times when I had a good pass rush that I didn't finish," he said when asked what he wanted to improve. "You realize the guy on the other side of the line is paid a lot of money. They're not going to let him get touched. Continuing to sharpen the end of my rush, that third phase, and make sure I start to finish."

Part of his off-season program saw him go back and watch most of his bad plays to figure out how to eliminate them moving forward. 

"I don't think there were that many bad plays, but even the rushes that I didn't finish, just trying to figure out what I can do to finish," he said.

As for criticism about his strength, the former Oregon standout said that his strength was never really a problem; rather, it was something else he had to learn.

"What I started to learn was more of the application of my strengths, start to figure out how to use my leverage and use the things I have to my advantage," he said.

As far as the big picture goes, Thibodeaux is locked in and focused on the upcoming season.

"When you haven't played against NFL-caliber guys, you don't know how big, how strong you need to be, how fast you need to be," he said. 

"Once you kind of get that down and you start to learn the ins and outs of the games, which is what I started to do at the end of the season last year, going into this year, it becomes a lot easier. Now I can focus on the offense and not so much focus on myself but figure out the different tips and tricks I can give going into training camp."

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