The New York Giants haven’t been the deepest team at linebacker this season, something that was made worse when Ryan Connelly was taken out for the season with a torn ACL, but they’ll have some extra help at the position against the Detroit Lions. That’s because the team recently signed Deone Bucannon, formerly of the Arizona Cardinals and the Buccaneers.
Bucannon only joined the team this week as a free agent after being released by the Bucs earlier in the year, but it’s not going to take long for Bucannon to get into the mix. It seems Bucannon remembers enough about James Bettcher’s system to get game time right away, because according to Pat Shurmur, Bucannon is set to play against the Lions in the Giants’ game for week eight.
“Yeah, he’ll be active. He’ll be involved. He did a good job this week. Again, there was some familiarity with our system and I think he handled his workload really well,” Shurmur said on Friday.
Bucannon, of course, has had a few bad seasons but will have a chance for a fresh start following a completely unimpressive stint in Tampa.
That was preceded by a couple declining years in Arizona, which followed an impressive sophomore season – if the Giants can get Bucannon to play more like he did in his second year, where he recorded 109 total tackles, they’ll find that they have a gem at the linebacker spot that they didn’t have to give up anything for.
With the trade deadline approaching rapidly, it’s unknown if the Giants intend to add any other players to the roster in the coming days. The Giants have until Tuesday afternoon to make trades, and with rumors flying left and right about whether the team will keep what they have or sacrifice players to rebuilding, it looks like we might not get answers until after the Lions game.