Owa Odighizuwa: His Golden Opportunity
In Wednesday’s OTA, Robert Ayers suffered and ankle and knee injury. Believe it or not, this is a crushing blow to the New York Giants’ pass rush. Steve Spagnuolo must be cringing at this very moment. Ayers was the only bright spot of what was the Giants’ mediocre pass rush last season. Most likely, Ayers was going to get a larger role in 2015 due to his successes and now someone has to take that place. That player could be Owa Odighizuwa.
It’s never good when a player gets hurt on any team, but it just ends up being a part of football. Sometimes it actually leads to career changing events for the substitute player. The perfect example would be Colin Kaepernick coming in for Alex Smith or Tom Brady coming in for Drew Bledsoe. In this specific case, it would be Odighizuwa getting more playing time because Ayers is hurt.
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Odighizuwa was a steal in the third round of the draft. Some analysts even ranked him as the biggest steal of the entire draft. He was a projected third round pick because of his previous injury history. Even though the Giants’ took a gamble, it was completely worth it. Odighizuwa could be an absolute beast on the field opposite Jason-Pierre Paul.
Ayers getting hurt means one less player in the defensive rotation. It also means that one player has to get bumped up. This is Odighizuwa’s chance to step up and show the coaches what he’s made of.
One door after another keeps opening up for Odighizuwa to steal a starting role. It seems like this is just meant to happen. If there is one thing Spagnuolo knows how to do it’s create a fearsome pass rush. Odighizuwa could be the product of Spagnuolo’s fearsome defensive schemes.