After dazzling NY Giants fans in his first few games as a rookie in 2019, linebacker Ryan Connelly is just about fully healthy.
The 2019 NY Giants – particularly on defense – didn’t leave a lot to be excited about in 2019 as the unit struggled week in and week out. However, one lone early bright spot was 2019 fifth-round draft pick, linebacker Ryan Connelly.
After Big Blue stumbled out of the gates to an 0-2 record, the rookie out of Wisconsin was a major reason for the NY Giants shocking their own fan base by rattling off two wins in a row to get back to .500 through four games.
While that may not seem like a big deal, the wins coincided not only with new franchise QB Daniel Jones being inserted into the starting lineup, but Ryan Connelly making big plays and being a steadying force on ‘D’ as well.
After playing sparingly in the team’s Week 1 loss to Dallas, Connelly started the team’s next three games and excelled before tearing his ACL in a Week 4 blowout win over Washington where he was just starting to show off his complete skillset.
In just two full starts, a half a start and that small amount he played against Dallas, Connelly racked up 20 tackles – on a 0% missed tackle percentage – a sack, two interceptions, two passes defenses, 2 QB pressures and a QB hit.
Having the difficult task of playing next to the struggling Alec Ogletree, Connelly actually manned the defenses calls for two games when Ogletree went down with an injury in Week 3 against Tampa Bay (to no one’s surprise that’s when the defense kicked it up a notch).
Even though he’s shown hes more than a sure tackler, there’s one skill in particular that should have NY Giants fans drooling, especially considering the free agent addition they made to take over the other inside linebacker position — pass coverage.
When’s the last time you can remember the NY Giants having even a capable linebacker in pass coverage?
It’s been a while.
Yet, in his rookie season, Connelly held QB’s to a 22.6 QB rating on 57% completions, showing he’s more than a formidable force when dropping back in coverage.
NY Giants almost ready to unleash Connelly for Year Two
According to the NY Post, Connelly is just about back to full speed as the only thing he’s been held out of so far in training camp was the team’s first intrasquad scrimmage last Friday.
He’s surely going to have to show Joe Judge, Patrick Graham and the rest of the NY Giants coaches that he is completely healthy before he’s given a starting spot, but once that happens it should be all but a guarantee that he mans the other inside linebacker spot opposite newly signed Blake Martinez.
When Blake Martinez signed with the NY Giants this offseason, the biggest concern was in fact his pass coverage. Knowing that, Martinez and Connelly should make a solid duo as they are both heady players that give it their all.
Having a linebacker like Connelly that not only can hold his own but actually has the upper hand sometimes while guarding runningbacks and tight ends is a huge advantage for a defensive coordinator.
Right now, David Mayo is penciled in opposite Martinez but that should be changing soon.
Hopefully, Connellly will be ready to take part in the team’s second intrasquad scrimmage so he can pick up where he left off last year.
Joe Judge is no dummy and he surely examined all of last year’s film at length with his coaches, so they should be counting down the days for Connelly to return to full strength.
It sounds like the team is just being cautious for now as Connelly is almost 11 months removed from that nasty knee injury, so NY Giants fans shouldn’t have to wait much longer for last year’s biggest surprise to return.