Giants Country

What Did We Learn About the Giants This Spring?

On paper, at least, the New York Giants have come a long way from where they were a year ago this time.

Patricia Traina

What Did We Learn About the Giants This Spring?
What Did We Learn About the Giants This Spring? /
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School's out for summer, and following the spring semester, the professors at the New York Giants no doubt have to be feeling a lot better about this roster than they were a year ago, right?

"I'd say it’s probably tough to tell right now," said head coach Brian Daboll in his final press briefing of the spring. "We have a lot of work to do, a lot ahead of us once training camp starts. The guys have been working hard. The guys here have done everything we've asked them to do, and I think we’ll have better answers for that once we get out there with pads on."

That's not to say that some noticeable things weren't on display. Daboll cited the strength and conditioning aspect and the chemistry between the returning players and the newcomers as positives.

"It's been a good group to work with," he said. "Time will tell here as we get started in training camp."

What else did we learn about this Giants roster? Read on.

They Have Better Depth

No roster is ever going to have perfect depth at every single position. Still, the Giants, who remember a year ago were hamstrung by a tight salary cap situation, were left having to shop in the bargain bin for talent--some of which worked out and some did not.

This year, they had a little better salary cap situation, but general manager Joe Schoen didn't splurge like an out-of-control shopper during the day-after-Thanksgiving Day sale. He limited his big-money deals to linebacker Bobby Okereke and defensive lineman Rakeem Nunex-Roches; otherwise, he handed out mostly one-year deals to guys like receiver Parris Campbell and defensive lineman A'Shawn Robinson.

He also traded for tight end Darren Waller, re-working that contract. And he used the draft class to add to the offensive line (John Michael Schmitz), defensive backs (Deonte Banks, Gervarrius Owens, and Tre Hawkins III), the defensive line (Jordon Riley), and running backs (Eric Gray).

That's a lot of depth at previously thin positions. Now, of course, it's up to that depth to stay healthy and contribute; otherwise, the efforts will have been for naught, but last year the roster looked sparse in some areas, so the same can't be said for this year.

Want a bonus? Having that kind of depth means, for example, that defensive linemen Dexter Lawrence and Leonard Williams don't have to play an unholy amount of snaps beyond the 60-65 percent that is usually the target number or that Saquon Barkley doesn't need to continue taking the kind of pounding he has when on the field. That means (hopefully) that those players should remain fresh and relatively healthy as the season grinds on.

They Can Play Match-up Football

Piggybacking off the depth development, having a variety of talent and skillsets at certain positions like running back, receiver, and defensive back now allows the coaching staff to play more match-up football than they might have been able to do last year.

A good example of that is slot cornerback. Although defensive backs coach Jerome Henderson said that ideally, you find one guy who can handle all types of slot receivers, given how offenses are diversifying their approach to the slot receiver position, how much better do you think he feels about knowing he has short twitchy guys (Darnay Holmes), bigger, more physical guys (Aaron Robinson), and combo type guys (Cor'Dale Flott) available to mix and match depending on the match-up?

The same can be said of the dozen-plus receivers the Giants have on the team. While eventually that group will be whittled down to six at the most, the Giants have a better mix of taller guys to go along with what last year seemed like an endless supply of the shorter variety.

They have guys who can stretch the field (Parris Campbell, Jalin Hyatt) and yards-after-the-catch specialists (Wan'Dale Robinson, Darius Slayton, Isaiah Hodgins). And with such a mix, offensive coordinator Mike Kafka must have had a grand old time experimenting with the different looks and formations the team showed this spring.

They're Relatively Healthy

Yes, a handful of players didn't do much of anything as far as on-field work went because they were still recovering from various injuries and/or off-season procedures. But other than maybe for a small handful of players--receivers Sterling Shepard and Wan'Dale Robinson, and defensive lineman D.J. Davidson--the Giants should be in good shape healthwise when they report back in six weeks for training camp.

A big revelation to come out of the spring was the status of defensive lineman Leonard Williams's neck. Williams told reporters that the ailment that bogged him down for most of the last half of the 2022 season has healed up and that he's been doing some preventive work to ensure the next doesn't become an issue.

"I think during the season, it was just hard for it to recover just because every time I made a tackle, I would feel it," Williams said. "It wasn't going to go away till the season ended. I've had a few months off now since football. I've been back in the weight room. I haven't been feeling it at all. Now that I'm getting older, that is something I have to pay more attention to, though, is my recovery and my body."

They Have Speed

If the Giants are ever to catch up to the Eagles and Cowboys, adding speed on both sides of the ball was a must this off-season.

That's what Schoen sought to do. On defense, he added Banks, who logged a 4.35 40-yard dash time and a 42-inch vertical and 11-foot-4 broad jump at the combine.

On offense, Hyatt recorded a 4.4 40-yard dash, 40-inch vertical, and 11'3″ broad at the NFL Combine.

That's just a small sample focused only on the rookies, but the more speed the Giatns add to the team, the better they'll be able to attack and defend outside the box.

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They Can Go Deep

Last year the Giants were ranked last in the league in big pass plays (28) of + yards. This year thanks to the speed and (hopefully0 the improved blocking by the offensive line, the hope is that the offense will be able to open things up a lot more and have a few more explosive plays to their name by season's end.

Waller should help with that. A big, speedy target, having Waller run down the middle of the field, should help to open things up along the perimeter where if the receivers can beat single coverage, perhaps there will be more big plays to be made.

And here's the good news. The added speed should help quarterback Daniel Jones, who can count a deep ball among his strengths. Last year, thanks to the lack of speed at receiver and their struggles to get open, Jones had an adjusted deep pass completion percentage of 46.2, a percentage that might have been higher had he not been tied for third in the league (among quarterbacks with at least 20 deep pass attempts) for highest drop percentage by his receivers (16.7).

They're Trying New Things

Nick McCloud looks like he's moving full-time from cornerback to safety. Daniel Bellinger saw some snaps at H-back. Darren Waller lined up in the slot, out wide, and even in the backfield. Darius Slayton made a few cameo appearances in the slot as well as part of what looked like more pre-snap motion being run on offense than this time last year.

These are just a few of the different experiments the coaches tried with the players. The springtime is when you want to try different things, and this coaching staff, to its credit, left no stone unturned in its exploration of the players' various skill sets and how they might be best deployed once everything starts to count.

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Patricia Traina
PATRICIA TRAINA

Patricia Traina has covered the New York Giants for over three decades for various media outlets. She is the host of the Locked On Giants podcast and the author of "The Big 50: New York Giants: The Men and Moments that Made the New York Giants" (Triumph Books, September 2020). View Patricia's full bio.

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