Giants Player Profile: Cooper Rush, QB

2019 Rewind

Whenever a coach goes to a new team, he's bound to bring a player or two from his old team with him.

Such is the case with Cooper Rush. Rush was initially signed as an undrafted free agent by the Cowboys in 2017 out of Central Michigan. In four seasons, he completed 1,022 of 1,648 passes for 12,894 yards, 90 touchdowns, and 55 interceptions.

Rush became expendable when Dallas signed former Bengals starter Andy Dalton.

Rush followed Jason Garrett, the former Cowboys head coach turned Giants offensive coordinator, to New York where he's served as sort of a teaching assistant in the quarterbacks' room.

"He’s been great to have in the room," starter Daniel Jones said last month. "He’s been in the system for a number of years and understands it well. He’s able to answer a lot of our questions and speed up that learning process."

From a playing perspective, it's unclear just how much one can expect from the 6'3", 225-pound Rush. He's only appeared five games over three NFL seasons dating back to 2017 and has thrown one pass attempt for three yards, that coming in his rookie season.

Looking Ahead

It's not known how many quarterbacks head coach Joe Judge plans to keep on the roster--ideally, it would be three given the now added concern of COVID-19 potentially affecting depth.

But one thing that can probably be said of the quarterback situation is that it doesn't make sense for the Giants to keep both Rush and Alex Tanney on the roster.

Rush and Tanney are very similar. Neither has any true NFL experience save for the rare mop-up duty here and there.

The advantage that Rush does have over Tanney is his prior working relationship with Garrett--the Giants were reportedly the only NFL team to submit a waiver claim on Rush which, if true, should tell you something--and understanding of the offensive system.

Rush even had his contract restricted by the Giants, who gave him some guaranteed money as part of a deal with a base value of $1.25 million.

The total of the deal is similar in value to the $2.133 million he was originally due in 2020.

That the Giants guaranteed money in the contract offers a pretty wide window into their thinking regarding what they intend to do at the backup quarterback spot.