It has been a long time since Jason Pierre-Paul was a flat-out dominant superstar in the NFL. That is what Pierre-Paul was in the Giants 2011 Super Bowl campaign when he had 16.5 sacks. Pierre-Paul has since been good, last season he had 12.5 sacks and provided a much needed threat off the edge.
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Now Pierre-Paul is set to return to the field after essentially blowing up some of his digits in a fourth of July fireworks mishap. When the season ended it looked like Pierre-Paul had once again found what made him such a terror in 2011 and fans expected big things for him in 2015. After the fireworks accident though everything changed.
Now the Giants are just looking to get anything they can out of their once dominant defensive end. In Pierre-Paul’s absence the team has only nine sacks which ranks last in the National Football League. The Giants need a spark and they hope (but don’t expect) Pierre-Paul is that igniting spark that gets them to opposing quarterbacks.
The truth is that we don’t really know what to expect in Pierre-Paul’s return. It will be interesting to see how much he actually plays. Being in shape and being in football shape are completely different things. Pierre-Paul’s hand will take some work getting used to especially because hand fighting is such an integral aspect of the battle in the trenches.
I think the best course of action for the Giants is to play everything by ear. If Pierre-Paul is up to it, let him get his snaps. It isn’t like he can be worse than who the Giants have been putting out there in the pass rushing department. I think you’ll see Pierre-Paul as a rotational player though today. Look for him to come in the game during pass rushing situations.
The good news for Pierre-Paul is twofold. For starters he is still an explosive athlete with many physical advantages including great length. Secondly he is just 26 years old. It is very likely that Pierre-Paul will adapt to his situation and will have plenty of good football to play.
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Everybody will surely be glued in to the Giants defense today. Not only do we want to see if the Giants can get something out of Pierre-Paul but we also want to see if the team can recover from last weeks failures. The Giants clearly need all the help they can get on the defensive side of the football.