NY Giants: First player suffers from positive COVID test

The NY Giants have been luckier than most teams when it comes to having players test positive from COVID, but the first member of Big Blue officially tested positive this week.

Although the NY Giants are ‘lucky’ in some regards that their first player to test positive for COVID-19 wasn’t one of their key pieces, many, including myself had high hopes for wideout David Sills and his prospects of making the 2020 team.

That will become more difficult for the second-year pro and former college star now that he will have to be under quarantine until he can show that he has tested negative from both his independent doctor and the team’s own physician, Dr. James Kinderknecht.

Ralph Vacchiano of SNY first pieced together that Sills was missing from workouts on Tuesday, leading him to correctly speculate that he was the player that had in fact tested positive.

Via Twitter:

For now, Sills will be isolated from the rest of the team and be tested daily. Until he tests negative, he will not be allowed on the field or around any of the other players.

What does this mean for Sills’ chances of making the NY Giants?

In my recent piece speculating on the best combination of a NY Giants wideout depth chart, Sills made the cut, as this team’s wide receiver corps is badly lacking size and Sills brings that in bunches at 6’4”.

He also was a touchdown machine at West Virginia University, leading the nation in touchdowns with a staggering 18 touchdown receptions.

Sills ended up going undrafted due to speed and rawness concerns but the Buffalo Bills signed him to an undrafted free agent deal shortly after the draft. After making it all the way to the end of their offseason program, he was exposed to waivers where the NY Giants pounced on him.

He spent 2019 mostly on the NY Giants’ practice squad before appearing in one game late in the season, recording no stats. Still, a year of grooming in the NFL (which would only be his third year ever as a wideout) figured to have him set up nicely to make a run at the NY Giants’ opening day roster.

His fate isn’t sealed, as the NY Daily News is reporting he is asymptomatic and there’s a decent chance he begins testing negative fairly soon.

With training camp – or whatever you want to call what’s going on – extending into September, he should have at least a few weeks to show Joe Judge and his staff what he can do on the football field.

He also has the advantage of being hand-picked off of waivers by Dave Gettleman as the GM clearly saw something in the big-bodied wideout.

There’s a solid chance he would have been scooped up by another team should that team had the chance, but the NY Giants were high up on the waiver order at that point last year after a disaster of a 2018 season.

The back-end of the NY Giants wideout corps figured to feature some of the most intense battles of all of training camp, as although slots 1-3 are firmly set, there were at least two spots up for grabs for high-upside youngsters like David Sills.

I wouldn’t count him out just yet, especially if he’s able to quickly recover from the virus.