Tag: Kenny Phillips

Loss of Evan Engram continues disturbing first-round Giants trend

Following the loss of Evan Engram, the New York Giants have now had 11 straight Round 1 picks fail to play on a second long-term contract.

As the league’s legal tampering period opened last week, New York Giants tight end Evan Engram was one of the more highly coveted free agents heading into the open tight end market.

Engram, of course, ended up signing with the Jacksonville Jaguars on a one-year deal, $9 million deal.

Engram’s departure puts the tight end in all too familiar territory for Giants first-round draft picks. Engram, like so many of the team’s recent Round 1 draft picks, will depart without getting a lucrative deal from Big Blue.

Though there are a few outliers, as Tom Rock notes, most players never even had the opportunity for a short-term contract after their rookie deal expired. Engram is the latest.

Aaron Ross, Hakeem Nicks, Kenny Phillips, Jason Pierre-Paul and Prince Amukamara all contributed to least one of the Giants’ recent Super Bowls. But, for the most part, their prime years were short-lived as the team moved on at the right time.

The sole exception is JPP, who is still playing at a high level but never got a lucrative long-term deal from the Giants before being traded.

David Wilson and Ereck Flowers were unlucky picks by the Giants as Wilson’s career ended early due to injury and Flowers was one of the biggest busts in franchise history. However, Flowers did go on to be a formidable option for other teams following his time with Big Blue.

The departures of Odell Beckham Jr. and Eli Apple were the most drama-filled on the list. And while Beckham still has some love for Big Blue, Apple can’t decide which one of his former team’s fan bases he hates more.

Of course, the Giants’ next shot at breaking the streak will be Saquon Barkley. After his rookie year it seemed as though he would be a Giant for life, but after the last few years of injury-filled football, Barkley may not be a Giant much longer — many speculate that he might currently be on the trading block.

After that it will be Daniel Jones and Dexter Lawrence from the 2019 NFL draft class — a class where the Giants already have a failed with one of their first-round picks (Deandre Baker).

Current general manager Joe Schoen obviously hopes to buck this trend.

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Throwback Thursday: Giants, Victor Cruz crush Jets’ spirit on Christmas Eve

In our latest Throwback Thursday, we revisit Christmas Eve in 2011 when the New York Giants crushed the New York Jets’ spirit.

The New York Giants have never played a game on Christmas Day. In fact, only four teams had done so before 1989 and that was in the 1971 playoffs when the league couldn’t avoid playing games on Christmas that year.

The Giants have played on Christmas Eve, however. Six times as a matter of fact. The first game was in 1989 against Bo Jackson and the Los Angeles Raiders in the bitter cold at Giants Stadium (I’m still cold from that game).

The latest game was in 2017 when they were shutout, 23-0, at the hands of the Cardinals in Arizona. In between there was a 9-7 victory against Dallas in 1994, a 35-20 loss in Washington in 2005 and a 30-7 home loss to New Orleans in 2006.

The most memorable Christmas Eve game occurred in 2011 against the New York Jets. Both teams were in playoff contention heading into this Week 16 matchup and needed to win out to qualify for the postseason. This was perhaps the most important game in the history of the rivalry due to the elimination factor.

Tensions were a bit high as the Jets tore down some the Giants’ Super Bowl banners in the runway on the way out onto the field. Head coach Rex Ryan then tried to psych the Giants out by sending former Giants star receiver Plaxico Burress out to handle the opening coin flip.

The Jets (8-6) scored first on a five-yard pass from Mark Sanchez to Josh Baker. The Giants countered in the second quarter with a Lawrence Tynes 21-yard field goal and the longest play from scrimmage when Eli Manning hit Victor Cruz on a short pass and Cruz did the rest, racing past several Jet defenders for 99-yard touchdown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek5Zyzn3Avw

The Giants never looked back. The defense played a stellar game. Ahmad Bradshaw’s 14-yard touchdown run near the end of the third quarter extended the Giants’ lead to 17-7. Tynes opened the fourth quarter scoring with a 36-yard field goal.

The Jets narrowed the Giants’ lead to six with a one-yard Mark Sanchez sneak but the Giants kept the Jets at bay the rest of the way. Chris Canty forced Sanchez into an intentional grounding penalty in the end zone for a safety and then Bradshaw iced the game with a 19-yard touchdown run to give the Giants a 29-14 victory.

“They did a lot of talking and we let our play do the talking for us,” said safety Kenny Phillips. “We will just leave it at that.”

“We know it’s going to be hyped up – it should be,” Giants defensive captain Justin Tuck said. “I know we did a good job of saying, ‘Talk is cheap, play the game’ all week, but we knew they were going to talk a lot and we talked a little bit ourselves. We’re not that innocent. The thing we did is we came out and backed it up. That’s the most important thing. It was a must-win game for us and we get to go off to the next round, play for a playoff berth.”

The next week, the Giants took out the Cowboys at home, 31-14, to win the NFC East crown. Four games later, they were Super Bowl champions for the second time in four seasons.

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How did the Giants fare in the offseasons following their Super Bowl titles?

ESPN recently ranked the best offseasons for all Super Bowl champions of the salary cap era, so where did the New York Giants check in?

The Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl last season and followed it up with an impressive offseason. So impressive, says ESPN’s Dan Graziano, that he ranked it the best in the NFL since the salary cap was instituted in 1994.

The New York Giants won two Super Bowls since then and their subsequent offseasons after those wins weren’t too bad. Graziano ranked them 14th and 15 out of 27.

No. 14: 2011 New York Giants

In February of 2012, the Giants were coming off another upset victory over the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl and had designs on repeating, but fell back to Earth instead. General manager Jerry Reese may have had his worst offseason in 2012 with a lackluster and fruitless draft and marginal free agent additions.

Their free-agent losses were all guys who were about done anyway, including Brandon Jacobs, Mario Manningham and Aaron Ross. And they managed to sign tight end Martellus Bennett on the cheap for one season before his career really took off. The Giants’ draft was an 0-for-7 disaster, though, and this was a roster that needed more work than its stewards thought. The 2012 Giants managed the same regular-season record (9-7) as the 2011 team did, but this time it wasn’t good enough to get them into the playoffs.

No. 15: 2007 New York Giants

The Giants shocked the world by beating the undefeated Patriots in February of 2008 and then took the NFL by storm that fall. The only team could stand in the Giants’ way was, unfortunately, the Giants.

Their season was usurped by the Plaxico Buress shooting incident, and even though they earned the top seed in the NFC, they exited the playoff immediately with a soft showing against Philadelphia.

Hall of Fame defensive end Michael Strahan retired following the Giants’ Super Bowl upset of the unbeaten Patriots. Edge rusher Osi Umenyiora suffered a season-ending injury during the offseason. The team traded tight end Jeremy Shockey, who was in the coaches’ doghouse anyway, to the Saints and lost Reggie Torbor, Kawika Mitchell, William Joseph and Gibril Wilson in free agency. The positives included a draft that brought in Kenny Phillips, Terrell Thomas and Mario Manningham. And the 2008 Giants posted the best record of any Tom Coughlin Giants team ever at 12-4 before losing to the division-rival Eagles in the playoffs.

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