Rewinding back to the 2017 season for the New York Giants, rookie tight end Evan Engram was a bright light at the end of a seemingly endless dark tunnel. Despite his encouraging development and abilities on the field, he struggled immensely with dropped passes.
Last year, Engram finished with eleven total dropped passes, which hurt the Giants during games. Luckily, those drops weren’t all that influential given the downward trend of the locker room and effort on game-day. In 2018, the starlet tight end will be looking to improve upon his biggest weakness.
How Evan Engram is battling dropped passes for the New York Giants:
Engram has made it a priority to work on his pass-catching this offseason, regularly staying after practice to catch balls from the juggs-machine. After reviewing some of his film from last season, it was obvious that he was battling a lack of focus and jitters. If you’re watched a football game before, you have probably heard the announcers say something along the lines of, “he turned his head up field before securing the catch, which caused him to drop the pass.” This was the problem for Engram last season and it has continue into camp.
Engram amassed 64 total catches for 722 yards and six touchdowns in 2017. The Giants led the league with 45 dropped passes, in which a quarter of them belonged to the rookie tight end.
3/ Good to see Evan Engram spending extra time after practice with the Juggs machine. I believe he can become a top-tier TE in this league—if he can cut down on the dropped passes (he had 2 in the last 2 days). His dropped ball today should have been a long TD pass from Eli.
— Patricia Traina (@Patricia_Traina) August 4, 2018
With the explosion of offensive prowess Engram brings to the team, there’s no excuse for him to limit his abilities with drops. I’m confident that he can be one of the league’s most effective TE’s in the passing game, and with an increase in mass he can be a serviceable blocker as well.