Where does the NY Giants cornerback group currently stand?
The NY Giants secondary is still in flux right now as the coaching staff tries to figure out who belongs and where they fit.
Big Blue swooped in on free agency and signed Logan Ryan to an incentive-laced one-year deal. Ryan’s arrival provides a much-needed veteran leader to bolster the team’s young secondary, and his versatility will be mesh well with Joe Judge’s and Patrick Graham’s philopsophies.
After Xavier McKinney’s foot injury, the defense lost a talented player at safety. It remains to be seen where Ryan will play but I expect to see him in a variety of roles including safety, slot cornerback, and some outside cornerback.
Defensive coordinator Pat Graham will surely use him as a chess piece all over the defense alongside Julian Love. At this point in his career, Ryan projects mainly as a safety but he did play a fair amount of outside cornerback on a solid Titans team in 2019.
However, the NY Giants cornerback unit is very suspect right now. The team is going into the season with James Bradberry locking down the CB1 role which is fine, but everything behind him is in question.
Can Corey Ballentine do a good/competent job as a starting boundary cornerback with limited experience? Can Darnay Holmes blossom as a rookie and hold down the starting slot/nickel role? Behind them, can other guys support the unit as depth and backups?
This all remains to be seen. With no proven experience playing together on the field, the concerns are valid and legitimate.
The organization’s best route would be to sign another veteran boundary cornerback who will come at a fair rate and help out the team while mentoring the group’s young and promising players.