When John Harbaugh was hired to be the New York Giants head coach, he set out to put his stamp on a directionless franchise.
Early reports were that the Harbaugh believes the Giants already had a competitive roster and the team didn’t need to be rebuilt from the ground up. Instead, the roster just needed “tinkering” in free agency and the draft. As things have unfolded, we’ve seen some position groups be virtually unchanged from a year ago, while others are have been radically changed.
This week we asked
you which position group you believe to be the most intriguing after the off-season program. The responses were close, but there was a clear winner.
I can’t say that I’m particularly surprised by the outcome, though I’m glad to see that the responses are all relatively close together and there wasn’t a blowout. To me, that says I designed the question pretty well, and that the Giants’ team as a whole is interesting to the fanbase.
But it really makes sense that the linebackers are the most intriguing unit on the team.
Fans have been clamoring for an upgraded linebacking unit for years now, and the Giants’ collection of off-ball linebackers and edge defenders might be the deepest it’s been in decades. Arvell Reese (who is currently tied for 3rd in odds for AP Defensive Rookie Of The Year, per FanDuel) and Tremaine Edmunds are big, long, athletic, and versatile, and have already been giving the offense headaches. Micah McFadden was coming off of a breakout season when last we saw him, and Jack Kelly has the potential to be a sixth round steal.
The Giants’ edge defenders, Brian Burns, Abdul Carter, and Kayvon Thibodeaux are all long and supremely athletic. Edgr has become (arguably) the second-most important position on the field behind quarterback, given how rare elite traits are, and the Giants might have the deepest group in the NFL when you also consider that Chauncey Golston and Khalid Kareem can be rush linebackers as well.
Not to mention that Reese can walk down to the line of scrimmage and play EDGE, or that McFadden and Kelly are both very good blitzing linebackers.
The potential upside that makes the secondary the second-most intriguing unit makes both of these units that much more intriguing. Aggressive coverage from the secondary will give the pass rush an extra fraction of a second to finish, while pressure from the pass rush could create opportunities for takeaways on the back end.
We’ll see how it all comes together, but it’s worth being excited about in June.
