There can no longer be any doubt that somewhere alongside Baker Mayfield and Jarvis Landry, Odell Beckham Jr. is wearing a Cheshire cat smile while sticking pins in his Dave Gettleman and Pat Shurmur voodoo dolls.
The good news is that Golden Tate is appealing a four-game PED suspension.
The bad news is Golden Tate has been forced to appeal a four-game PED suspension.
The best-laid plans of mice and Gettleman are already in jeopardy three days into training camp following Sterling Shepard’s fractured thumb and Corey Coleman’s season-ending ACL and Tate’s inadvertent indiscretion following an April visit with his wife to a fertility specialist.
My advice: It is time to move tight end Evan Engram to wide receiver.
A year ago the Giants made Beckham their $90 million man. They didn’t sign him to trade him. Then they traded him.
Ohell now.
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The Giants signed Tate and his 611 career receptions to a four-year, $37.5 million deal the day after the Beckham trade. Asked when they knew about the PED problem, Shurmur said: “It was certainly after we signed him.”
Giants receivers still standing were talking about being Next Man Up, because that’s always the prescribed NFL party line, but panicked Giants fans were more consumed with Next Man Down.
One meme had a young boy (Gettleman) on a swing — atop the words, “This is fine” — while a fire raged behind him.
And Victor Cruz, as much as he would love to bring back his salsa, ain’t coming back. Nor is Plaxico Burress, or Amani Toomer.
Gettleman constructed his team for Saquon Barkley to be The Straw That Stirs The Drink, except the way things are unfolding, he won’t just be facing eight-man boxes, he’ll be trying to continue his march to Canton against 11-man boxes.
The domino effect includes Eli Manning, aka 38-year-old Eli Manning, who has missed David Tyree terribly over the past few seasons. Manning, of course, is well past the point of carrying the offense and making everyone around him better. That is why Gettleman reached to draft Daniel Jones.
If Tate is unavailable for the opening four games — the league has a history of frowning upon PED excuses — and Barkley feels as though there are more defenders swarming around him than there are Democratic presidential candidates, Manning will be hindered in his attempt to win, and win early, and hold off Jones.
Jones’ development will be slowed by throwing to the journeymen and wannabe dreamers who populate the wide receivers room.
Engram is 6-foot-3, the kind of tall target Manning likes, and the only weapon — Darius Slayton is a rookie — capable of stretching the field. Over the final three games of last season, with Beckham sidelined, Engram caught 19 passes for 243 yards and a touchdown. With the offensive line upgraded, Shurmur should make Engram a focal point downfield and in the red zone, and let tight ends Rhett Ellison and Scott Simonson handle the blocking.
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(This is no time to point out that an injury-plagued Engram missed five games last season and is having his workload managed following a minor hamstring issue in the spring.)
Tryout winners on Saturday were Amba Etta-Tawo, a fan favorite last summer, and T.J. Jones.
“I feel like we have dogs in our room and they got an opportunity of a lifetime,” Sterling Shepard said.
In the meantime, wide receivers please stand up and introduce yourselves and your accomplishments:
- Russell Shepard, seventh year, 57 catches, six touchdowns.
- Cody Latimer, sixth year, 46 catches, four touchdowns.
- Bennie Fowler, sixth year, 72 catches, six touchdowns.
- Alonzo Russell, one game, no catches.
- Da’Mari Scott, three offensive snaps in 2018, no catches.
- Reggie White Jr., rookie undrafted free agent from Monmouth.
- Slayton, fifth-round draft choice, nursing a hamstring.
- Amba Etta-Tawo, undrafted free agent in 2017, five catches for 87 yards with Birmingham of the AAF.
- T.J. Jones, fifth year, 64 catches, four touchdowns.
- Brittan Golden, fifth year, 18 catches, one touchdown, one groin injury.
- Alex Wesley, undrafted rookie free agent, PUP list.
“We can make this a Cinderella story, as they say,” Russell Shepard said.
Except Gettleman’s Big Blue clock appears to be on a crash course to strike midnight.
Ohell.
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