What Ten Former New York Giants Highlight this Year’s NFL Playoffs?
Of the contestants involved in the six games this weekend, in addition to the two top teams that earned byes, none of the 14 NFL playoff participants are the New York Giants. No surprise at this point to Big Blue fans, many who went into the season with so much hope only to have it evaporate week by week. The root of the problem general manager Dave Gettleman and his young unproven Coach Joe Judge were sent packing a few days ago. However, some former Giants players are still enjoying the excitement of the postseason tournament.
Tom Rock of Newsday, who appears on The Drive with Charlie & Dan regularly wrote an article today on newsday.com about those players and whose name may ring a bell this weekend. According to Tom, "Of the 14 teams still playing, 10 have former Giants on their roster. There isn’t a wild-card game that will be played this weekend without an ex-Giant somewhere on the field."
Rock added that, "there are five former first-round picks by the Giants on teams playing this weekend: Odell Beckham Jr. with the Rams, Jason Pierre-Paul with the Bucs, Eli Apple with the Bengals, Justin Pugh with the Cardinals and DeAndre Baker with Kansas City." Those are some pretty big names that are still enjoying some success.
One top team in the NFC East have loaded up ex-Giants. The Cowboys have four former Giants, safety Darian Thompson, cornerback C.J. Goodwin, running back Corey Clement and backup quarterback Cooper Rush. As Tom Rock pointed out that the Cowboys are probably not relying on any of them for significant contributions in their game against the 49ers, however, the Giants roster in 2022 was bad and these guys are still playing.
Tom Rock noted that other draft picks of the Giants "who have found themselves in the postseason include Bobby Hart and Davis Webb with the Bills, Jonathan Hankins with the Raiders, B.J. Hill with the Bengals, Andrew Adams with the Bucs and Devon Kennard with the Cardinals." They're not Giants anymore but it does make it a little extra fun to root for the former Giants or against them!