Is this the year Corey Coleman finally breaks out for the NY Giants?

Corey Coleman’s NFL career hasn’t gotten off to the start he’d hoped for, but the NY Giants are giving him another chance to prove his worth.

When wideout Corey Coleman was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the middle of the first round of the 2016 draft, the sky appeared to be the limit. Fast forward four years, and he’s hanging onto a roster spot for dear life with the NY Giants.

Many challenging things have happened to Coleman during the course of that time frame, including injuries and shoddy play on the field, but the former electric prospect is still just 25-years-old.

After getting off to a shaky start with the Browns, the straw that broke the camel’s back came in Week 17 of the 2017 season with the team doing everything it could to avoid going 0-16. Well, Coleman didn’t help matters as he dropped a crucial fourth-down pass late in the game to seal the victory for the Steelers and that was the end of his career in Cleveland.

After bouncing around briefly with the Bills and Patriots, the NY Giants gave him a shot based on his athletic ability and former promise in 2018. Coleman wound up carving out a nice niche for himself as the team’s kick returner and his career had appeared to be revived in some respects.

The NY Giants wideout group was pretty loaded that year, so it was going to be hard for him to crack the starting lineup, but his trajectory was undoubtedly positive.

Then, hardship struck again as just when Coleman was beginning to feel comfortable and earn his stripes with Big Blue, he blew out his ACL in training camp in 2019.

Still, the NY Giants saw enough potential out of him in 2018 to bring him back on a one-year deal in 2020 to give him (presumably) one last chance to show he can be the receiver that put up 31 touchdowns over his last two seasons at Baylor.

Where does Coleman fit in with the Giants’ 2020 WR group?

With Darius Slayton, Golden Tate, and Sterling Shepard firmly entrenched as the team’s top three wideouts, it’s going to be tough for Coleman to earn starting snaps. However, the depth chart is wide open after those three, and with the how often offenses utilize four receivers on the field at one time these days, Coleman could conceivably carve out a nice role for himself.

First, he’s going to have to prove he’s fully recovered from his torn ACL; that shouldn’t be much of a problem due to the injury happening all the way back in last July.

Next, he’ll have to show that the jitters that led to his high drop rate have subsided and that he’s ready to start taking his NFL career seriously, as there was a bit of prima donna behavior in Cleveland when things weren’t going his way.

He’s going to have a clean slate with new head coach, Joe Judge, and based off talent there’s a real shot he could win that #4 receiving job. Even if there were to be no injuries, he’d get his fair share of looks on offense, but as we know, injuries happen.

Hopefully, Coleman is taking this offseason very seriously and participating in all voluntary team activities as he gears up to try to have a career-saving season.

He surely has the talent, proving he can be a touchdown machine and possessing elite 4.39 speed.