Getty Golden Tate #15 of the New York Giants runs a route against Corey Ballentine #25 during the Blue and White scrimmage
The New York Giants spent the better part of the past 48-plus hours putting the final touches on their opening day 53-man roster ahead of Monday night’s showdown with the Pittsburgh Steelers. However, despite a sizeable overhaul, Giants fans came away reiterating the same question that had been asked throughout the majority of the summer, what are we doing at cornerback?
On Sunday, head coach Joe Judge did his best to clear up the mystery, by adding even more.
“Right now, we’re looking to play as many of our players as possible at those positions. Keep them fresh and rotate,” Judge told reporters on Sunday. “One thing we haven’t had yet is a preseason game or a regular season game yet obviously. We’re going to make sure we use all of our guys, roll them on through, and we’ll see who performs the best. Whoever the hot hand is we may go with, but we’re going to make sure we keep rolling them on through and building the experience of the group as a whole.”
New York added James Bradberry in free agency this offseason, however with DeAndre Baker on the exempt list and Sam Beal opting-out of the season, the Giants have been stripped of multiple players they were expecting to man large roles in 2020.
Last year’s sixth-round pick Corey Ballentine is expected to be given a look to lock down the role opposite Bradberry. New York also added Logan Ryan to the roster in recent days, but it’s currently unknown if he’ll operate more as a corner or a safety in Big Blue’s scheme. There’s also fourth-rounder Darnay Holmes, who thoroughly impressed throughout camp, but still remains a mid-round rookie on the surface.
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Judge Addresses the Yiadom Trade
Along with the group mentioned above, the Giants also acquired former third-round draft pick, Isaac Yiadom, in a trade with the Denver Broncos last week. Yiadom struggled in a new defensive scheme this past season, but showed glimpses of brilliance in man-to-man the year prior, a trait that the Giants, and Judge, are clearly fond of.
“We like the way he plays on the line of scrimmage,” Judge said of Yiadom. “He has some experience within the league. That goes a little bit of ways, but it’s our job as coaches to get him caught up to our system as fast as possible. There won’t be much carryover necessarily from the other system, but we try to keep as many of the techniques similar for him so he can carry over as fast as possible. But we like the energy and effort he plays with, we like the physicality he shows on the line of scrimmage, and obviously, this is a guy that we remember when he came out of college not too long ago in the draft. We’ve known about this guy in the league for a while.”
At the time of Judge’s comments, Yiadom still had not taken the practice field as a member of the New York Giants, leading some to question whether he’ll be much, if any, of a factor come kickoff on Monday.
“We’ll have to wait and see,” Judge said. “I can’t answer that right now, but we’re definitely going to give them all the information we can to make sure we put them in a position to play to their strengths.”
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