Giants TE Darren Waller Embraces "Freak" Label

New York Giants tight end Darren Waller has only been with the team a few short months, but already he's drawing some impressive superlatives from his teammates who have seen him do his thing up close and personal.

From being labeled as "unguardable" by safety Xavier McKinney to being named "a freak of nature" by receiver Parris Campbell, Waller is taking it all in stride as he looks to build his comfort level with the Giants' offense and quarterback Daniel Jones.

"It's an honor for my teammates to speak of me in that way because these guys do it at a high level and have done it for a really long time," Waller said on Friday before the team's third training camp practice.

Those who have seen the practices dating back to the OTAs have discussed the multitude of ways that Waller is being used in this offense so far. For Waller, one of the things he enjoys the most about the offense is that it's not as rigid as past systems in which he's played.

"It looks like certain freedom on certain routes to where it doesn't have to be super rigid or a way that it's drawn up in the playbook, but put your personality and your feel into how you sell certain routes and coming up with ideas of concepts that he's used with tight ends in the past," he said.

And, of course, thanks to an open dialogue with the coaches in which they encourage feedback from the players, Waller is enjoying the chance to put his two cents into the pot.

"I can offer things that I've done in the past like, ‘Hey, let's try this.’ It’s something that we can bounce ideas, but also know there's a standard of being prepared and knowing what you're doing and growing your knowledge to participate in that dialogue," he said.

Waller is aware of the big expectations attached to his name and agrees that they're fair. He's already appeared to become a favorite target of Jones, and the two have quickly developed a chemistry that can sometimes take a quarterback and receiving target a lot longer to develop.

"It's a relationship that’s gelling," Waller said. "We’ve got a few months under our belt of staying in touch and just open dialogue, ego removed. We can tell each other what we're thinking, what he may want, things I've been comfortable doing, and things I like doing and find a midpoint or be able to just learn about each other."

Waller is a fan of Jones's even-keeled nature. He respects how he has worked through adversity throughout his first four seasons in the league.

"First and foremost, he just has a calm spirit about him," Waller said. "It's not too high or too low; it’s staying in the middle. You can tell by how he's navigated so many adversities in the noise of his career that that's something he's focused on, and it's paying dividends for him now."

The early dividend has been some highlight plays between the two as Waller continues to learn, and Jones increases his understanding and comfortability as he enters his second season in this Daboll/Kafka offense.

That can also be attributed to the freedom Waller alluded to, that, while not a major detail, is enough to allow him to use his creativity to get open within the structure of the play.

"It's not a major detail, but it's the way you may set up routes on a third-and-short situation to where the paper and the playbook may tell you, ‘Hey, you do this, and you run into this landmark and do this,’ but you can put your own little sauce on it and get open. It's encouraged as long as the fundamentals are there, and your knowledge of what the defense is doing, your timing and the concept is there," Waller explained.

Given how the 6-foot-6, 245-pound "freak" has looked so far has let Giants fans wanting more, something they're certain to get in the coming weeks and months.

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