Did the New York Giants make a mistake refusing to trade away Evan Engram?

The New York Giants barely managed to overcome a Washington Football Team that featured their third-string quarterback. They allowed Alex Smith to throw for 325 yards and one touchdown, but luckily the defense managed to secure three interceptions, changing the game’s result.

While it wasn’t pretty, the Giants earned their second win of the season, both coming against Washington. This was Daniel Jones’ second game in his career where he didn’t turn the ball over, which just shows how important it is to hold on to the ball and utilize it efficiently.

However, one of their top playmakers, tight end Evan Engram, nearly cost the Giants another game this season with his inexcusable drops.

The New York Giants could have parted ways with Engram:

Prior to the game’s start, reports had bubbled to the surface, stating the Giants were fielding calls for Evan but refused to trade him unless the draft capital was significant. Some reports indicated that they wouldn’t accept anything less than a first-round pick, and others mentioned a second-round pick being the floor.

Well, as we know, the Giants elected to keep him and his extreme athleticism on the offense. Nonetheless, he continues to drop passes and make awful plays on a weekly basis. Check out the clip below that shows him bobbling a pass for several yards and almost cost his team a possession on their own side of the field.

It would be unfair only to state the bad and leave out the good. Engram did haul in five receptions for 48 yards and a touchdown, showing off his athleticism with an oppressive catch in the end zone.

He’s one of the more polarizing players in the NFL, at one moment dropping an easy pass on a drag route and then making an insane grab downfield by his fingertips. Hopefully, one day he finds out how to remain consistent and catch the simple passes, as he nearly cost another game for his team this season.

A lot of it is technique-oriented, and he fails to maintain the simplest of technicalities when catching a football. For example, it is correct to come back to the football when your quarterback is throwing toward the middle of the field, and your back is turned to the end zone, but jumping for no apparent reason only throws off your biomechanics.

As you can see in the video above, Engram takes a short leap at the point of attack, with no defenders making physical contact. This forces him to drop the ball and the Giants to punt, and which Washington scored a touchdown immediately after on a Terry McLaurin 68 yard pass from Alex Smith.

Overall, the Giants were right to ask for ample draft capital in exchange for Engram, as getting him the ball in open space is lethal. The issue is, he’s not the best at catching, and as a pass-catching TE, that is a bit troublesome. He can be extremely valuable in the passing game, but these drops simply need to stop. Whether it is a coaching problem or not, finding an answer is essential.