The general consensus heading into the 2021 NFL season is that the New York Giants have one of the league’s top secondaries. The Giants’ beat writers have already been banging the drum for this talented group and now national pundits are beginning to jump on the bandwagon as well.
Ben Linsey of Pro Football Focus has ranked the Giants’ secondary seventh out of 32 units in his preseason rankings.
7. NEW YORK GIANTS
In two years, the Giants have gone from starting Janoris Jenkins and a combination of B.W. Webb and Eli Apple at outside cornerback to a projected James Bradberry–Adoree’ Jackson duo in 2021. Bradberry’s 79.9 coverage grade last season ranked seventh among qualifying cornerbacks in his first year with the Giants. Jackson’s 82.5 mark in 2019 in his last full season of action ranked sixth. The potential is there for this to be one of the best cornerback tandems in the NFL.
Those two — along with a deep safety group that includes Jabrill Peppers, Logan Ryan and Xavier McKinney — give defensive coordinator Patrick Graham a lot to work with on the back end.
The offseason augmentations mentioned by Linsey are difficult to ignore. Jackson was a former first-round pick in Tennessee, who the Titans initially committed to by extending his fifth-year option but then released him after last season. The Giants rolled the dice that the 25-year-old is still a major talent set to emerge and inked him to a lucrative three-year deal.
Not mentioned here by Linsey are other talented prospects such as second-year slot corner Darnay Holmes, this year’s third-round pick, Aaron Robinson and players such as Julian Love, Sam Beal and Isaac Yiadom. Let’s not ignore Rodarius Williams, a sixth-round pick in this year’s draft that the team is very high on.
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