It’s rare that teams can bank on anything from late-round rookies, but every year a few of those players seem to rise to the top. And for the New York Giants, it’s quite possible that linebacker Cam Brown becomes one of those players.
A sixth-round pick, Brown possesses good size (6-foot-5, 233 pounds), speed and strength. He also possesses smarts, discipline and leadership, which fits like a glove under first-year head coach Joe Judge.
Brown’s former Penn State head coach, James Franklin, believes the talented linebacker will hit the ground running in East Rutherford, both on the field and behind-the-scenes.
“He’s a culture driver,” Franklin said on “Big Blue Kickoff Live” on Giants.com. “We talk about that all the time. He’s a guy that is going to have meetings with the coaches then be able to take that information down into the locker room. He plays aggressive, he plays violent, he throws his body around. Yeah, I think he’s what coaches are looking for.
“Everything I know about Coach Judge and everything I know about the organization that he came from, he’s going to align with that. He understands this is about production, it’s about doing your job. It’s not about all the hype, it’s not about the things you say in the media, it’s not about any of those things. It’s about doing your job and being a high-production, low-maintenance guy.”
That sort of leadership and dedication will serve Brown well in the locker room, while his athleticism will serve him well on the field.
“The reason coaches like speed and the reason coaches like length is, you know you talk about the football field, the width of it is 53 1/3 (yards), what you try to do is you’re trying to reduce space,” Franklin said. “You’re trying to take away space, and you can do that with your speed and athleticism, and you can do that with size. When you get a guy that has a little bit of both, then obviously it makes those throwing lanes for the quarterback more difficult.
“It makes your ability to make tackles and have a bigger tackle radius no different than a receiver and his catch radius. Length is important because it takes away space from an offense. Now, when you take the combination of good speed, length and intelligence, because intelligence is the other thing. Intelligence allows you to play fast. You can be the fastest guy in the 40, but if you can’t process information quickly, you have a difficulty playing fast and again, taking away space. I think that is what’s attractive to the coaches of the Giants about Cam, one of his unique qualities.”
The Giants got a late-round steal in wide receiver Darius Slayton a year ago, and it’s already beginning to look like that got another one in Brown this year.
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