Giants: More roster stuff

There are some other interesting twists to this roster composition. The Giants are keeping 8 LBs. I thought that among Kehl, Wilkinson and Blackburn 1 or 2 of them would be cut; instead all 3 made the team. When the Giants signed Bulluck late in the off season and advertised that he would be taking over the middle, I thought Goff would be given some snaps at OLB, further cluttering that position and making it a certainty that one of the incumbents would be cut. Instead, all 3 made the roster. I think this shows several things:

• The young LBs showed a lot of athletic ability in camp and did enough during games to give the Giants hope that they would be capable LBs, if not this year, at least in the future.
• Sintim was all but handed the starting job at OLB and played his way out of that position. Goff really stepped up at MLB and showed himself to be a better MLB than Sintim was an OLB. Consequently, they shifted Bulluck back to the outside and I am actually very comfortable with the Goff-Bulluck-Boley lineup.
• The fact that they signed Bulluck to only a one year deal and not a longer one indicates that the Giants have some confidence in the future of their young LB group.

 

The WR situation has to be considered a real feel good story for the undrafted rookie FAs that made the team - Cruz and Calhoun. Tim Brown was the favorite and played his way off the team with poor ST return performance and an absolutely brutal game at WR against the Patriots. He dropped virtually all the passes thrown to him and one that he caught, he did not play the sidelines well and was out of bounds. Giants have a very young receiving group, with Steve Smith, drafted in 2007, the senior member of the group.

 

The RB that the Giants traded for from the Vikings, Darius Reynaud, is an indication of how concerned the Giants were about their ST return game. I haven't seen Reynaud, and don't know if he's any good, but Brown showed that he could not do it. What a loss Hixon was.

 

Too bad for Bomar, but Rosenfels is a legitimate starting QB in the NFL. Bomar showed he has a decent arm, with a funky sidearm motion and at best, is still considered a project to develop into a backup. If he had shown much in preseason, some other team would have snapped him up instead of letting him fall to the Giants practice squad. It also shows that the Giants have high expectations for this season. If management thought that they were only a .500 team like last year, they probably would have allowed the team to sit and develop the young QB. The fact that they aggressively traded for Rosenfels shows that they don't want their season to be flushed away by a  short injury to the starting QB.

 

It is also very interesting that the Giants carried 9 OL-men, when they usually carry only 8. It could be that the Giants recognize that O'Hara may not make it back from injury in time for the start of the season and therefore carried Koets, who played well as backup C. Or it could be a more general, visceral concern that, beyond O'Hara, the personnel on the OL is aging, with Seubert, MacKenzie and even Diehl starting to show some age. Even if they play well, an aging football player, especially in the trenches, can get injured more easily and it is an important place to keep some depth. They also have Kevin Boothe still on the PUP list (I don't think he was cut) who could come back mid season some time to shore things up in case there are unexpected injuries.