Leonard Williams shows up to NY Giants camp with injury

Leonard Williams’ 2020 season with the NY Giants has failed to get off on the right foot as the defensive lineman reported to camp with an injury.

When the NY Giants acquired defensive lineman Leonard Williams from their in-city rivals last season, one of the things he was most acclaimed for was his durability.

The $16M man has still yet to miss any regular-season action due to injury during his six-year career, but that streak could be in jeopardy in 2020 due to an already abbreviated camp and the first game a little more than a month out.

Hamstring injuries are tricky and as can be expected in the Joe Judge era the NY Giants released little information past the fact that Williams was suffering from a “sore hamstring” according to the New York Post.

In general, pulled or aggravated hamstring is rated on a scale, typically from 1-4, with the least serious occurrences sometimes allowing the player to not miss any action, while the most serious on the scale can sometimes take a month or two to fully heal.

Hopefully, Williams’ hammy pull is on the lower end of the spectrum and he can get the few – yet valuable – defensive reps he’ll need in practice as he aims to be the straw that stirs the drink in new defensive coordinator, Patrick Graham’s, new scheme.

How does this affect the NY Giants defensive line?

For now, until we know the severity of Leonard Williams’ hamstring issue, its impossible to give a truly accurate answer here. One thing is for sure, though, NY Giants third-year defensive lineman, B.J. Hill would be first in line to get an uptick in snaps.

After wowing NY Giants fans during his 2018 rookie season with 5.5 sacks, Hill’s production fell off dramatically in 2019 after he was expected to truly take off during his sophomore campaign.

Hills numbers dropped all the way across the board; from 32 solo tackles to 15, from 5.5 (a NY Giants rookie record) sacks to 1, 8 QB hits to 2, and 14 QB pressures to 5.

While one would be right to point out that his snap count was reduced, especially after Williams was acquired, him playing 44% of snaps instead of 59% is not enough of a difference off explain that precipitous drop off in play.

For some reason, B.J. Hill just never got off to a good start in 2019 and once Williams arrived he became buried on the bench or just came out for run-stuffing downs.

Once to be thought a steal of a draft pick – Hill was taken with the 2018 third-round pick the NY Giants got from the Bucs for JPP – the former NC State star is already being questioned as a bust heading into his third season despite setting the team’s rookie sack record a little over a year ago.

If there was one NY Giants player that would stand the most to gain, it would be Hill. And I’ve long made the argument that Williams is not even close to $14M and a third and a fifth-round draft pick better than B.J. Hill in the first place.

Should Williams be forced to miss any time, Hill will once again get a chance to prove he’s way more 2018 B.J. Hill than 2019 B.J. Hill.