You're listening to the Bleav in Giants podcast with two-time Super Bowl winner Carl Banks and the voice of the Giants, Bob Papa. Welcome to another edition of Bleav in Giants presented by FanDuel. Bob Papa, two-time Super Bowl champion Carl Banks live and in color as the Giants get down to their first 53. They will make some other moves for certain. There's waiver claims. The Giants are fifth in the waiver wire pickup. I'm sure they're going to put claims in for people, especially at the defensive tackle position.
And then there'll be some more maneuvers because they'll go out and take a look at their roster, and they may decide that there's somebody on the street that might be better. But Carl, as we kick things off here, I know we got a lot of people that have questions that they want to ask us. Your initial reaction to this first 53?
Well, I think they picked a group that really earned it in camp. And then there are some that were cut that are going to find jobs right away. I think a guy like Evan Neal put a lot of good stuff on tape. He'll be on somebody's roster. You know, not as a starter, maybe on a bad team, but his career is going to continue. Dylan Camerer was a guy who I thought showed a lot, and then he just kind of faded a little bit as the wide receiver level of play started to go up. And that's just not with Odell, but everybody just started to look like they were raising their level of play and he just kind of stayed the same.
Carl, I think it's one of those situations, too, right? They have a pretty good idea of who their top 60 to 63 players were, so you'll see some of these guys getting signed back to the practice squad pretty quickly. Listen, there's a lot of quarterbacks on the street. How do they want to go about the practice squad quarterback? Do they want a veteran in there? Do they want a young player that they can develop?
That'll be interesting to see what they do with that.
Is Camerer going to go back to the practice squad? I saw some reports where even though they cut Berrios, they told him to stay around and they want him around for week one.
We'll see. There could be better options out there. I don't know. Is it Mecole Hardman? Is it Chris Jones who got let go by Cincinnati? I thought Berrios had a rough game the other night as far as turning the ball over and stuff like that. So, I don't think anything is etched in stone. You mentioned Evan Neal. Folks, we're not pumping the Evan Neal thing just on a whim. I mean, we watched the games, we've watched the practices. I know Phil was excited out of what he saw out of him. Could he be a candidate for a practice squad? Possibly. But they're going to take a look all around the league. There's going to be some good defensive tackles they can bring in too, Carl, because one of our fans out there has already asked the question, and it's something we should probably tackle right out of the gate about the run defense. How concerned are you guys? This is from Christian Childs. 'How concerned are you about the run defense, and afraid we have no depth?' I think he's right at this point.
Yeah, I think I've been hitting that point since the first preseason game. Listen, when you're getting in NFL games that are going 60, 70 plays, the big guys in there, your starters won't hold up and be effective. And you need rotational players. Shelby Harris and DJ Reader are good for what they need them for, but you need more guys like that coming in. And one of the reasons why I just kept highlighting a player like Darius Alexander is because he is going to be counted on to make a contribution. And he has been inconsistent in the preseason and even in practice. He's got talent. He's only a second-year, regardless of his age. He's only a second-year pro. So you don't give up on him. You develop him. Now, if he was in his third or fourth year and this is what we're getting, then you say, okay, he's probably going to get cut. But he's a second-year in a different system that is clearly more demanding of every position across the board defensively, and they have a way they want to do things.
And what we saw from him last year was flashes, if we're being real. But when you look at the defensive line, when guys got hurt, what did he contribute, right? He's inconsistent, and that's something that is not going to benefit this Giants defense. They want him to be consistently good against the run. Pass rush is just going to be—all of those inside guys, they're just going to be ancillary to the guys that they have that are going to rush, the edge guys, the blitzers. And these guys will be involved in the game, quarterback will get flushed to them, they'll get their share of sacks. This is not a group that you're counting on to go in and create sacks for themselves. That's not what they're out there for. They're out there to play the run and to get to third down so that you'll have some opportunities to rush your passer. So, Darius Alexander has to continue to work to get better. He's long, he's athletic. Someone said he's not strong. He is a strong kid. He's got some power. But listen, that is a legitimate concern right now because it impacts everything else you can do, Bob. If you have to commit another safety to the box to try to fortify your run defense, it's just going to hurt you in terms of what you can do defensively, some of the disguises you can implement. So, it's not a matter if they don't get it fixed—they're going to get some depth. That's why they got the big kid from Baltimore yesterday. They're going to get that fixed. And again, we're not looking at All-Pros or All-Pro performances in the interior of their defense. That's not what this defense calls for. And so, they're going to get productive and consistent players, though.
Yeah. It's not like they've been hiding the fact that they're not pleased with the performance. And yes, they went out and they traded a seventh-round pick for C.J. Okoye, somebody that Harbaugh is obviously familiar with. He's a gigantic person. Dennis Johnson, the Giants' defensive line coach, spent the last two years as the Ravens' defensive line coach. So, he's got familiarity, and I would be shocked if the Giants don't make another move at that position and wind up claiming somebody and bringing somebody else in. Because you're right, Carl. As great as all the pass rushers are, if you get run on up the middle, it's going to be a big problem.
You never get to third down. You never get to second and long. And they have to be consistent. I think when you look at the rest of the defense, they have the best players out there. They're going to be very effective if they can get the interior fixed. No surprise cuts on defense to me. People were saying Ford could be back, but I think they kind of got it right. We talked about Darius Muasau in the game against the Jets, and I said ball don't lie, right? He's a kid that when you look in your linebacker room, you're looking at guys that are bigger, stronger, faster, more productive. He's a great developmental story, but they no longer had the luxury of developing you. So his chance to make it, which was not going to be great with special teams, the thing that benefits him is that he did get real NFL playtime last year, which is part of his resume. So, he'll get an opportunity somewhere else to be on another roster because he's not an awful player. He was a guy that was being developed, but he got real playtime and significant minutes due to injuries, and he had some good stuff on tape.
So, but like when I say ball don't lie, when you're looking at four guys that are 6-foot-4, 6'5, 240, 250 pounds, you're an undersized linebacker who's very instinctive. But he's looking in that room too, and he's looking at the same film, and he looked at those guys and said, 'Okay, this is my life now. I got to figure it out on special teams, and that may not be good enough no matter how good I am on special teams because the numbers are not in my favor at the linebacker position.' And then drafting Jack Kelly, who again is another 6'3, 6'4 linebacker. They're big. It's just not the defense that was favorable to him, this scheme.
No. Yeah. He doesn't fit the profile of what Harbaugh's defense, what he wants his team to look like, and you wish him nothing but the best. OKC Donald: 'I can feel football in the air.' That's right. Just think about it, Carl. Two weeks from tonight, we'll be in the late second quarter of the Giants and Cowboys at MetLife Stadium. It's coming that close. Christian Childs sent us a note: 'Feel bad for Camerer and Ford. These guys played their tails off.' They did. But you know, Carl, I've been doing this, part of the broadcast team since 1988. You see it every year. There are guys that play their tail off and they have really good camps, good preseasons, but that's kind of—and I'm not saying that that's their career ceilings, but there is a cut-off as far as how many years do you bounce around in that position when you kind of start to realize that there's guys that are good in camp, they're good in preseason, but they're not going to cut it in the NFL because it's for the best of the best. So, we'll see if they wind up on the practice squad.
Ford might have a chance because of specials.
All right, let's get to the big item, Carl, with Odell Beckham Jr. It's called burying the lead. I mean, he made it. He said as he was walking off the field, Harbaugh congratulated him today after the practice and congratulated him on making the team. What a crazy redemption story for him.
Yeah, but the story is not even finished in my opinion, Bob. I think his mission was to return to football as a New York Giant and make a contribution. I don't think he was just going to be a guy that says, 'Okay, I want to be on the roster.' He still has standards, right? And that was proven Friday night. He was the fastest guy on the field. They clocked him at 20-point-something miles an hour on the one go ball.
Yeah, they have them all wired with the GPS stuff. He had the highest speed of any player on the field in that game the other night at 33.
Yeah. So this is just the first chapter of the book, this story, or the sequel, I should say. Because his goal wasn't just to make the team, right? He made the team and he is going to contribute. That's been his goal. I think he's a complementary football player at this stage, but he's a hell of a complementary football player because he can be a real option when he gets into the game. Depending on how Coach Nagy and the rest of the crew configure their offense from week to week, he could draw the favorable matchups. I mean, listen, when Nabers is back on the field, he's drawing attention. When Nabers is on the field with Isaiah Likely, they're both drawing attention. I don't think any defensive coordinator in their right mind believes in their heart that a linebacker is going to be covering Isaiah Likely. So, they'll get opportunities. Those third receivers, those second receivers, they'll get opportunities. I don't know where he's going to land on the depth chart opening night, but if he gets an opportunity, he's going to make the most of it.
Yeah, I think we just answered NYtoPA87's question. Look, we watch the practices. We've watched the joint practice. We've watched the practice against their own team. We've watched them play it in games. I mean, that go ball the other day—Harbaugh told us in our TV production meeting, Carl, that he started to notice that little wiggle, that little something, and he saw it on a more consistent basis out of Odell. And whether it was in the Miami game, Harbaugh pointed out to us too where he just kind of darted in and out. All of a sudden, who else on the roster can do that? Obviously, Nabers has got the potential to be a great receiver if he can stay healthy. Malachi Fields isn't that kind of player. Slayton at this point still can't get in and out of his breaks the way Odell gets in and out of his breaks.
Well, let me just stop you there.
Different kind of players, right?
I was just going to say he never could. That was never his game. Right.
Odell won't catch a slant and go 70 anymore on you. That's the past.
Right, right. But he can catch the slant and he can make a guy miss. His presence is going to pay huge dividends for guys like Malachi Fields and Malik Nabers. The things that he can impart on Nabers are all the things that he had his growing pains, right? Nabers is a competitor. He's an emotional competitor. All the things you want, but you want to make sure that those things are curated so that you can be best when doing those things, if that makes sense. And I think that's where Odell can really help modulate those types of emotions, and you can tie them in with your next play, right? Where those were the growing pains for Odell, so that Nabers doesn't have to deal with it at that level. And I think that's going to be a positive for Nabers. He's not Nabers' overseer or anything like that, but just in conversations they can have, that'll be able to help Nabers really harness that energy and that emotion in the most productive way so that he always is at his best from snap to snap.
A guy like Malachi Fields, if he's looking at Odell Beckham on film, he's seeing the subtleties of even in zone coverage where Odell can threaten a safety and get him to open his hips when the safety doesn't want to because he got that suddenness, right? And that's a big difference maker in getting open in zone. If you're a big player, how can you manipulate a safety who's just sitting there watching you run at him, right? What can you give him to make him think, okay, well, he may be going to the post, or he may be running a nine? And so, I looked at that a couple of times with Odell just running in the Miami game. They got a safety over the top on him, and he's running a comeback. So he runs and all of a sudden he gives the safety a little something. The safety's hips open up, and as the safety's hips are opening up, Odell starts his comeback, right? Guys like Fields will learn from that. They can look at him and say, 'Why did you do this? How did you do this? Can you tell me how this is done?' Those are the things that he brings. Now again, he ain't on this roster just to be a tutor because he's going to lead by example, but he's also having that other element to that locker room where he can actually help guys who are young really understand how to manipulate defenses in the wide receiver room.
Christy1271: 'How do you feel about only five wide receivers?' Again, Christy, Coach Harbaugh, I think he said to us last week, right? He said, 'We may only keep five. It's a fluid situation.' Remember, for everybody that's watching this, this is the first 53.
It's not the game day 53. I've read these reports that Berrios will be back. Do they sign him to the practice squad? Because you're going to have some veteran players on your practice squad. You're allowed three elevations before you have to put him on the permanent roster. They might have him on the practice squad and he's the punt returner the first three weeks with practice squad elevations, because a player on the practice squad, if another team tries to poach them, they can decline to stay where they are.
They do have that freedom.
Who's to say they're still not done trading? I mean—
Well, okay, so let me let everybody in on a little something here that we've been given some—I won't call it privileged information, but when you look at this receiving corps, John Harbaugh is still not happy with not having a pure speed guy.
He wants a pure speed guy. So if one of those guys are out there, he's going to look at him. Now, he can run his offense effectively with what he has because, again, Odell's got some speed and the things that they can do out of the run game and run action pass will get guys down the field, but he is still in search of a speed guy. He wants one at running back. He wants one at wide receiver. Now I will say this: hats off to Tyrone Tracy, because he looked like the fastest running back on the field Friday. He knew the numbers. Like again, ball don't lie. He knew what those numbers looked like in that room. And then when they brought Najee Harris in, everybody's looking around like, 'Okay, I'm going to have to do something. This may be it for me.' Tracy showed speed through the hole. He showed power. And I think that probably made the coaches feel a little better about him being on the roster and his ability to give them a different dimension.
Now, you look at Tyrone Tracy last year, it was like grind-it-out yards, grind-it-out yards. The offensive line were not creating really downhill holes where you can hit it and get it, right? You could hit it and get you five, get you six, get you seven, break a tackle. Friday, you could see there was some hit-it-and-get-it yardage there, and he got it. He showed the burst, the 4.2 or 4.4 speed, or whatever it is he has. He got through there and you could see him take off. So, credit to him in showing that he can be what they need in terms of speed. The outside of this Giants receiving crew, the guys who were supposed to be the speed guys, it was Slayton and it's Jalin Hyatt. Now obviously they still believe Slayton can get it back, right? He was dealing with this hernia surgery or whatever. But I said a few podcasts ago that Jalin Hyatt was out of power-ups. And for those who play video games, you know what it's like when you have to go all the way back to the beginning. You don't have power-ups. And so now he had to prove it from the opening, and he was off to a good start in camp.
Then he got injured, and it didn't benefit him because while he was injured, every other one of those wide receivers in the room were competing their tails off. So it wasn't like he could pick up where he left off if you miss a week, right? And I think that really hurt him because it was a competitive group to begin with. His calling card was his speed. He didn't show enough of that because he was injured. And it doesn't help when you're out of power-ups, meaning he has some good stuff on—I would make the analogy of power-ups with Darius Alexander, right? He has a few power-ups left because he showed a little something last year. Jalin Hyatt couldn't get on the field last year, and so when he went back to the beginning to start, he had to prove it. And so getting off to a good start in camp, a strong start in camp, was great, but then he gets injured. I still believe he's going to be a good pro. He'll be on another team as their deep threat and he'll get another shot. But it was a hard call for them to say, 'Yeah, we need him because we believe in his potential.' Like, there was nothing on tape. Nothing.
No. I think his best plays were in the preseason. In his rookie year, he had the hundred-yard game against New England. It's hard to be in the league that long at a position in which you get targeted to catch passes and not yet have a touchdown catch.
He does not have an NFL touchdown catch. The sad part about it is, Carl, being at The Greenbrier and watching him practice, because he's never been considered sturdy, and they were using him on different routes than just go, and he was getting banged around in the middle of the field. He was securing the football. He's had some really good practices. But then he got hurt, and then I saw him limping around, and we haven't really seen him since. So, I highly doubt—I would be shocked if he's on the practice squad. Even though they want speed, I think they're going to look outside the box.
Yeah, I think his future is somewhere else, a fresh start. Because he can flat out run, and depending on what the offense is, he'll have another opportunity somewhere else. I don't think he's going to be out of the league.
No, he'll get a chance somewhere else. Christopher D'Alesio: 'Nabers, Fields, Likely, Mooney, OBJ, Ricard, Maluina, and offensive coaching change level up from last year.' I think the Giants have certainly increased.
Certainly, because the thing about Fields is—
He did it in the game against Minnesota where Jaxson Dart throws it up for him.
And he's been impressive in camp. In the joint practices with Miami, I got to temper everything about that, but he's a rookie so I'm not going to temper it too much. He's a keeper, man.
They're way better than they were last year. I'm not saying this is The Greatest Show on Turf, but with Nabers trending toward looking healthy, I'm taking my chances, with all due respect. I'm taking my chances with Likely, I'm taking my chances with Fields and Nabers. I've always liked Mooney, and I think Mooney having played for Nagy in Chicago understands what's needed. And OBJ, I'm trusting throwing the ball to him. The Giants have had too many receivers where you're just hoping they might catch it.
Yeah. And here's the other thing about when you look at this offensive construct: we really don't know what they're going to be from week to week in terms of game plan. It's going to take probably till midseason for Giants opponents to really get an idea of what the personality of this offense is going to be. We know it's going to be physical. Physicality—
is their brand. That's all you know because if you marry Greg Roman with Matt Nagy, it's a plethora of things, right? So if you're trying to get ready for a Giant game just based on their personnel, you're going to say, "Well, shoot. If Greg Roman is having input this week, we're going to see a lot of play-action and runs and physicality and a lot of different looks. And if it's Matt Nagy, it's going to be, you know, a lot of Kansas City all, you know, looking off-script, but it's totally scripted." And you merge those two together, you don't know which is going to be the dominant theme for the week. So you're really not going to know until you get probably to mid-season with this Giant offense what their real personality is, cuz they can do so many things with the two philosophies.
Of Roman and Brian Callahan, because he was calling plays the other night and, no surprise, all of a sudden there's a stutter move and there's a deep ball cuz that's his game.
He did with Cincinnati and Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.
So the fact that those guys are collaborative and they're working well together, and how about the fact that they've all had success, so they know what works? You're not dealing with a bright kid, bright guy that, you know, he's going to give you some input. These guys are all established play-callers and they all get along well. So when you put together game plans with these three guys, they know how to attack and they know how they want to attack from week to week. And then you kind of look at that with what is expected from a John Harbaugh team, and physicality is their brand. You know, whatever it is, it's going to be rooted in physical football.
Stevie Keys sent us a message. Doesn't really need much of a comment, but: "Picking up Stout as the punter is going to be a huge win. I mean, dude, the guy kicked an 81-yard like it was nothing after he just kicked it."
I mean, he's the real deal. But it's not just that he's got a big leg. Just talking with people on the staff and they're like, "This guy is meticulous about his preparation, his film study. He wants to see every film, every angle for the video guys to shoot it so he can look at his technique." It's a reason why he was a Pro Bowl last year. No disrespect to the previous—
But you can see why this guy was a Pro Bowler last year. And Carl, the punter is part of the defense, and you can attest to that as well as anybody because you had one of the best in Landetta.
Yep. And I also had the late, great Dave Jennings. But yeah, I mean, when it's a part of your game, it's a team. It's offense, defense, special teams. If you have a good punter and you have a good kicker, those are things that factor into wins and losses. These aren't things where you say, "Okay, we are down by two and we got a kicker whose range is iffy, and we may have to run another play to get him in range." And there's no guarantee. Now these guys know what they're doing. Or if you've got to punt the ball and you need to pin them back, you have guys that can do that. And you have good cover guys, and even on that 81-yard punt, they had guys down there to down that football. You know, the ball turned, it hit a little backspin and then went forward a little bit. But listen, this—
If they didn't touch it, it might have just stopped right there.
Well, it kind of started to roll back towards the goal line again. Big Dash says hello. Thanks, Big Dash, sends his support. Hey, Big Dash. Go Big Blue. All right. So we got Jim Bernard. "Four tight ends. You think Fidone makes it to the opening day roster?"
Well, Carl, we could share this with our audience, but you know, we have these TV production meetings with Coach Harbaugh before every telecast, the day before or whatever. And he always mentions Fidone. He's like, "Yeah, that Fidone kid."
He's got a thing for Fidone.
