Giants Sign ILB Tae Crowder to Practice Squad; Plan to Promote ILB/S Landon Collins

The Collins promotion was a long time coming.

Author:
Patricia Traina
Publish date:
Dec 22, 2022 11:50 AM EST

In this story:

New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll confirmed that the team has signed linebacker Tae Crowder to the practice squad and plans to promote safety/inside linebacker Landon Collins from the practice squad to the 53-man roster ahead of Saturday's game at Minnesota.

Crowder, who began the season as one of the starting inside linebackers, lost his job about midway through the season to Jalyon Smith. Before that, Crowder accumulated 28 tackles and 14 stops but also led the team in missed tackles (14) and allowed a career-worst 15 of 19 pass targets against him to be completed (78.9 percent).

He also surrendered a touchdown and had one pass breakup for a career-worst 122.1 NFL coverage rating.

"I think that it was one of those things where it just didn’t work out with the expectation of execution, and things just kept building up and building up," defensive coordinator Wink Martindale said of Crowder. "And you want to give a guy time to correct it, and we just didn’t have the time for him to correct it."

Collins, who hadn't been elevated to the game-day roster since Week 8, was elevated last week in what was his third and final activation before he would have been subject to waivers.

In 57 defensive snaps played, Collins has three tackles (no misses), the three tackles being stops. He also has allowed just one of four pass targets against him to be completed for five yards, a 39.6 NFL rating.

Defensive coordinator Wink Martindale told reporters Wednesday that Collins did a good job last week against the Commanders.

"I think he had one misread out there, which is expected a little bit because it’s been so long since he’s played," he said. "But I thought he did a nice job and am excited to see where he goes moving forward."

Martindale added that he would be "very comfortable" with giving Collins a substantial role on defense at the inside linebacker spot.

In other roster news, Daboll confirmed that cornerback Adoree' Jackson (knee) and guard Shane Lemieux (toe) are OUT for Saturday's game against the Vikings.