Where Giants Stand Ahead of Draft at Tight End
The Giants might have quantity at this position, but do they have enough as far as quality is concerned?
On the Roster
Evan Engram, Kaden Smith, Levine Toilolo (49ers), CJ Conrad, Garrett Dickerson, Eric Tomlinson (Raiders)
Off the Roster
Rhett Ellison (retired), Scott Simonson (waived)
Where Things Stand
The Giants currently have six tight ends on their roster, but of those six, only one--Kaden Smith--is likely to remain on the roster for the long term.
Of course, Evan Engram could join Smith if he makes a complete recovery from the foot surgery he had in December and if he can stay out of the trainer's room moving forward.
The Giants need to decide whether to exercise the option year on Engram's rookie deal by next month. While there has been growing sentiment for the Giants not to make that commitment, the odds are in Engram's favor because the Giants can then take 2020 to see if the coaching staff can better utilize (and hence reduce the pounding) Engram has taken so far.
Despite being a willing blocker, Engram shouldn't be asked to be an in-line blocker at the point of attack, and it looks as though the Giants are going to have Levine Toilolo, who is more of a blocking tight end, handle that aspect of the job.
Toilolo replaces the recently retired Rhett Ellison but is signed to a two-year contract which the Giants can bail out of after this year with no dead money if they so choose.
As for the rest of the tight end group, other than Eric Tomlinson, there is a lot of untested potential that may or may not develop into quality players, including the return of C.J. Conrad, who last year was a surprise roster cut after drawing rave reviews during the spring.
With all that said, do the Giants need to address the tight end position in the draft, or can they conceivably get by with what they have?
The answer lies in what offensive coordinator Jason Garrett has planned. When he was in Dallas, Garrett deployed several two tight end sets, or 12-personnel, which the Cowboys ran on 22% of their offensive plays last year.
Worth noting is that figure was a 5% increase from the prior season when the Cowboys were without a solid 1-2 punch at tight end (Witten was retired in 2018).
Based on some additional numbers from Pro Football Focus, except for the 2018 season, the pass targets to the Cowboys tight ends saw the bulk of them going to Witten (understandably) while approximately half of Witten's targets went to tight end No. 2.
More specifically, last season Witten was started 82 times and Blake Jarwin 43. The year before, the difference between the top-two targeted Cowboys tight ends was five pass attempts.
What does this have to do with the Giants? If Garrett continues this trend with how the tight ends are used in the offense, he's going to need two interchangeable tight ends who can block and go out on a pass route.
Does he have that on the roster right now? The Giants' decision regarding whether they draft a tight end in the draft will go a long way toward answering that question, but on the surface, the answer appears to be no.
