It’s safe to say that the New York Giants need help in the pass rushing aspect of their defense. The team finished near the bottom of the league in sacks and it’s a well known fact by now that it’s hard to win in the NFL – which is becoming more of a passing league with each year – without good play in that department. But the Giants haven’t recovered from the decline and trade of Jason Pierre-Paul, and Olivier Vernon was a disappointment last year before the team decided to move on from him this year, trading him to the Cleveland Browns for Kevin Zeitler.
It’s been a long time since other teams have worried about facing the Giants pass rush, and playing the team just isn’t intimidating these days for opposing quarterbacks. That’s something that should change if the team wants to return to the playoffs, and it looks like they may have made one of the right moves to head in that direction.
That would, of course, be spending a third round draft pick to address that part of the defense. While that pick, Oshane Ximines, isn’t the highest rated player in the world, it seems like the Giants managed to get a good value considering their main focus in the first and second rounds was other areas. They could have done far worse, but managed to come away with what looks like a productive player in round three.
Here’s a bit of what the Draft Network has to say about Ximines:
Has good lateral quickness to attack half-man on offensive tackles. Plays with balance and body control necessary to execute counter moves and adjust rush plans according to OT set and QB depth; has great recognition abilities in this regard. Has some bend to flatten and finish after clearing hands.
It looks like Ximines is going to fit into the defense as an outside linebacker, which could put him in competition with last season’s rookie OLB Lorenzo Carter. On the other side of Carter is new signing Markus Golden, but with Golden not having yet fully bounced back from past injury, it remains to be seen just who will start in that position. Ximines could see time as a rookie, but before that happens, the Giants will need to sign him.
Ximines is one of the few rookie players to not have signed a deal yet, along with fellow Giant Daniel Jones, who is the more notable one right now in the conversation about Giants rookies not signing their rookie contracts yet. Still, it’s definitely relevant.
It doesn’t look like a contract holdout is necessarily going to happen at this point – as a third round pick, after all, Ximines has less leverage to negotiate than Daniel Jones does as the sixth pick in the draft. But with days left until the start of training camp, one must also ask this: what exactly is the holdup?
The Giants managed to cut down on drama during this year’s offseason activities… One can hope the trend continues and that both Ximines and Jones can be signed before training camp begins.