Evan Engram will be going to his first-ever Pro Bowl this season but he has set the bar higher than that for himself and the New York Giants.
The fourth-year tight end will be playing all 16 games for the first time in his career. So far this season, he has 61 receptions (on pace for a career-high), 637 yards and one touchdown. But this is not the focus of the former first-round pick.
“That’s not really in my mind, me playing 16. I’m just focused on just trying to win this game. That’s the main thing right now,” Engram told reporters.
Engram’s goal is to make the playoffs, something he has yet to do in his short career.
“It would mean a lot [to make the playoffs], just everything. The last three years here is obviously not up to standard. Just the progress and all the work we’ve put in this year and everything we’ve been through,” Engram said. “Obviously, we have to go out and execute and win this game for that to be a possibility. But it would mean a lot.”
However, in order to make the playoffs the Giants’ offense needs to improve drastically. Offensive production has been the Achilles’ heel for this New York team in 2020 as they have been ranked 31st in points and 31st in yards per game this season. This is not something that the tight end is worried about, though.
“I have the utmost confidence in our offense,” Engram said, echoing Daniel Jones’ previous sentiments. “I think that the past couple games and some of the outings that we’ve had definitely aren’t up to our standard. We have to be better at execution, we have to be better at communication, we have to be better at making plays, making one on one plays.
“There are a lot of things that go into us as players that we haven’t been doing lately to make the offense roll. We’ve shown that we can get rolling. We’ve shown what we can do in the run game. We’ve shown what we can do in the pass game. We just have to get back to the basics and execute on those small things that we’ve done in the past.”
And Engram takes this needed offensive development personally as he believes he and his teammates need to execute to win on Sunday.
“We have to execute as players. We have to go out and make those plays,” he said.
Engram will have an opportunity to do just this on Sunday as he plays arguably the biggest game of his NFL career, facing off against a divisional rival, the Dallas Cowboys, for an opportunity to make the playoffs (pending on a Washington loss).
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