Giants Add Tight End Depth, Sign TE Daniel Coats

The Giants once again have 5 tight ends on the roster, with the signing of free agent TE Daniel Coats. TE Ben Patrick retired over the weekend citing personal issues as the reason.

via the Star-Ledger:

"A 6-3, 264-pound BYU product, Coats started 11 games for the Bengals in 2009. He had 16 catches for 150 yards. He has 30 career catches without a touchdown.The Giants now have five tight ends in camp: Travis Beckum, Bear Pascoe, Jake Ballard, Christian Hopkins and Coats."

With the Giants struggling to piece together a cohesive TE unit, you have to wonder if Bear Pascoe really will convert to a fullback or whether he’ll be reverting back to full time Tight End. He can block, catch, and run routes well — the Giants might seriously consider it and leave all the heavy FB road paving to Henry Hynoski. Ed Valentine has great writeup today on the Pitt alum, check it out here.

If indeed Hynoski can convince Coughlin and Gilbride to let him start at FB, Pascoe should be installed back at TE and server as a backup FB like he did for Madison Hedgecock last year. The Giants are going to need atleast two starting TE’s familiar with Eli Manning and the offense, so much so that on 3rd downs without Steve Smith available Eli is intimately comfortable with throwing them the ball without hesitation.

This is a critical position to keep an eye on as the departure of Kevin Boss to Oakland will really shake things up on this Giants offense, as Boss was a good blocker in the run game as well as completely clutch with catching 4th quarter game winning drive passes.