Thanks to signing James Bradberry, Adoree’ Jackson, and drafting well the past two seasons, the NY Giants have dramatically overhauled — and improved — the secondary
No longer fielding low-rent journeymen at cornerback and safety, the NY Giants find themselves boasting one of the NFL’s premier secondaries as the 2021 NFL season approaches.
One year after signing James Bradberry, who made the Pro Bowl in his first season in an NY Giants uniform, the organization rounded back and added one of the premier players available in free agency this spring; Adoree’ Jackson.
In a division that features dynamic wide receivers such as the Dallas Cowboys’ CeeDee Lamb and Amari Cooper, Washington Football Team’s Terry McLaurin, and the Philadelphia Eagles’ DeVonta Smith, the Giants have a legitimate counter-punch on the back-end of coordinator Patrick Graham‘s defense.
Pro Football Focus lists the NY Giants’ secondary as the seventh-best in the league:
"In two years, the Giants have gone from starting Janoris Jenkins and a combination of B.W. Webb and Eli Apple at outside cornerback to a projected James Bradberry–Adoree’ Jacksonduo in 2021. Bradberry’s 79.9 coverage grade last season ranked seventh among qualifying cornerbacks in his first year with the Giants. Jackson’s 82.5 mark in 2019 in his last full season of action ranked sixth. The potential is there for this to be one of the best cornerback tandems in the NFL.Those two — along with a deep safety group that includes Jabrill Peppers, Logan Ryan and Xavier McKinney — give defensive coordinator Patrick Graham a lot to work with on the back end."
Regardless of who starts at safety — and the NY Giants have options — this will be the most talented, and perhaps dominant, secondaries the organization has fielded in recent memory.
Last season, Bradberry held opposing quarterbacks to a meager 70.1 passer rating when targeting him, and in his most recent fully-healthy season Jackson’s passer rating allowed was just 91.8.
It’s easy to see why PFF is bullish on the NY Giants’ secondary, and Graham is so optimistic about their prospects in 2021.
"“You can’t have enough good DBs because as you could see throughout the league,” Graham told reporters during the NY Giants’ mandatory minicamp. “Just take a look at the teams that would be the Super Bowl, Tampa Bay, they were five or six deep at wide receiver plus they had tight ends and they are going to have another tight end coming back.“So, you have to be able to cover these guys, first game of the year against Denver, not that we are focused on that, but they have a bunch of guys injured coming back there to add to that list. So you can’t go wrong with having a bunch of DBs but we are happy to have Adoree’, his skill set, you could watch the tape and figure that out, but there’s other guys, too, that we are excited about, Darnay Holmes, Aaron Robinson, these guys, they are all in the mix. I’m excited about our group.”"
Matt Lombardo is FanSided’s National NFL Insider and writes Between The Hash Marks each Wednesday. Email Matt: Matt.Lombardo@FanSided.com, Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattLombardoNFL