Football is almost back and the New York Giants will be opening their first training camp under John Harbaugh next week.
The return of football is always an exciting time, and this year’s camp offers an extra helping (or two) of intrigue. Not only do we get the usual curiosity as to what the coming year’s team will look, but the new regime under Harbaugh offers several layers of intrigue. Not only do we not know what the new offensive and defensive schemes will look like, we also don’t know exactly
what the final roster will look like.
Training camps always feature position battles, but a host of clean slates and some roster turnover has created more uncertainty than usual.
This week we asked you which position battle you’re most interested in seeing. And while cornerback won the poll, the results are interesting across the board.
It does make sense that the battle for the starting cornerback job opposite Paulson Adebo is the most intriguing to fans. After all, the defense has been the biggest pain point for a while now, particularly considering how many times the defense snatched defeat from the jaws of victory last year.
It’s made all the more interesting by the fact that the position battle seems to be a straight ahead duel between Gregory Newsome II and Deonte Banks, while rookie Colton Hood develops on the second team. Both Newsome and Banks are former first round picks who flashed upside early in their careers but have since regressed. Fans want to see whether the defensive staff can get one (or both) to play up to their potential and become gems for the defense.
It’s both interesting and expected that wide receiver took the second spot. There are far more questions than answers at the position, with intrigue at just about every level. The Giants have added a bunch of receivers this year, but can any combination of them make opponents fear the Giants’ passing attack? Likewise, how many of the receivers can do enough that Jaxson Dart doesn’t feel as though he needs to win the game on his own?
Right now the over-under on Dart’s passing yardage is 3,100.5 per FanDuel. That averages out to just over 182 yards per game. While that would be an improvement over his rookie numbers, that also isn’t going to scare many good defenses. Can an improved receiving corps help the Giants take the NFL (and Vegas) by surprise?
At the opposite end of the spectrum, it IS surprising that both defensive line and kicker didn’t get more support.
As mentioned above, the defense has been a major pain point for a while now, and the Giants’ defensive line was thrown into turmoil by the loss of Dexter Lawrence (trade), Rakeem Nunez-Roches (free agency), Roy Robertson-Harris (injury), and Sam Roberts (injury). We expect DJ Reader and Darius Alexander to be two starters, but things are fluid and surprises could happen. We also don’t know just how the defensive line will be used and how the players will step up.
And considering the Giants have lost multiple games over the last couple years due to uncertainty and inconsistency at kicker, how that battle shakes out could determine the outcome of games. It’s also highly unusual that a team has no experienced veterans competing for the kicker job.
The kicker tends to be an afterthought right up until they aren’t. However, it would definitely be news if undrafted rookie Dominic Zvada (who seems to be leading the competition after mini-camp) wins the job and also holds off all the veteran free agents.
