October 16, 2004
No safety?
I wrote recently about Derrick Ward. The fact that we signed a running back when we have Barber, Dayne, and Cloud is a big deal. As John Dellapina writes in the Daily News, Ward isn't an immediate threat to Dayne.
Why is signing Ward a big deal? Because we don't need a 4th running back on the roster as much as we need a fifth safety. The Giants depth chart at safety looks like this: Strong Safety = Gibril Wilson, Curry Burns
Free Safety = Brent Alexander, Jack Brewer
Neither Curry Burns, nor Jack Brewer has shown that they can play a game at safety. The criticism on Burns is that he's not really capable of covering a slot receiver or play in a deep zone. Now in another article Dellapina write about the progress of Will Allen and Will Peterson. Perhaps the Giants are thinking they are so talented and deep at cornerback that the defense could succeed with Curry Burns playing should Wilson (Brewer should be ahead of Burns on the depth chart at either position) go down or Jack Brewer playing should Alexander go down.
But as Coughlin said in this old article about Burns, the giants started with 5 safeties on the roster. We now ahve one veteran safety, one rookie playing well, one veteran special teamer, and one rookie who proabbly doesn't know the playbook. The fact that Ward was signed instead more depth at safety means that the Giants must think he has pretty big upside potential because running back was not as big an area of need as safety.
Posted by James Trotta at October 16, 2004 10:00 PM