The Giants selected Penn State's Saquon Barkley with the second pick overall Charles Harris Jersey , a player many football experts consider the best running back to enter the NFL since Adrian Peterson came out of Oklahoma in 2007.
Barkley, who entered the draft after his junior season, has all the ingredients to become a great. He has quickness, speed, strength, character and can pass protect. He also can catch and is a dynamic returner, although the Giants don't plan on using him as the top returner.
Giants general manager Dave Gettleman said he hasn't seen a player like Barkley in almost three decades. He has the speed and feet of the little guy with the power and strength of a big guy.
"This kid makes our quarterback better," Gettleman said. "He makes our wide receivers better. He makes our O-line better. He makes our defense better because we'll have a much stronger ability to hold the ball. He is a great kid and he is going to be great for our culture. He was the unanimous best player in the draft."
The Giants didn't take long to make their selection once the Cleveland Browns took Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield at No. 1.
Gettleman quipped he would have made the pick sooner but the league mandates teams wait five minutes before picking.
"At the end of the day, a great player is a great player," said Gettleman, who called the pick easy. "He is a touchdown maker. He is a threat to take it to the house every time he gets his hands on the ball."
The Giants need help, coming off a 3-13 season that cost coach Ben McAdoo and general manager Jerry Reese their jobs.
Drafting Barkley gives new coach Pat Shurmur a player who can do it all, while showing the Giants believe the 37-year-old Manning has more in the tank.
"He is our quarterback, we believe in him," Gettleman said of Manning. "He threw the hell out of the ball for three days (minicamp). He has not lost one bit of arm strength."
Shurmur expects Barkley to be an every-down player, but first he has to learn the offense Alex Cappa Jersey , which is more diverse than the one Penn State employed.
"If he is the best Saquon he can be, then he will find his way into the lineup and he will find a way to help lead this team," Shurmur said. "That's the challenge for him."
Gettleman expects Barkley to meet the challenge. He recalled watching video of a game earlier this season when he got to the second level and was confronted by two linebackers and a safety. He put together three moves and left them in the dust.
"I watched it and saw all the other stuff and just put the clicker down and went to the next guy," Gettleman said.
He'd seen enough.
By the time Barkley spoke to reporters in New Jersey in a conference call, he had received welcoming texts from Manning and receiver Odell Beckham Jr., whom he had recently trained with in Los Angeles. He said he felt at home after his visit with the Giants.
"I know that I have to work my butt off every single day to get to where I want to go," Barkley said. "And it's not going to happen in one day. It's going to take baby steps and it's going to take a long trip up that mountain, but every single day I'm willing to work."
In three seasons, Barkley finished as Penn State's second all-time leading rusher with 3,843 yards, including 1,271 this past season when he scored 138 points. He had 18 rushing touchdowns, pushing his career total to school-record 43. His 53 overall touchdowns also are a school record.
Coming out of the backfield, he had 54 receptions this past season. His 1,195 career yards receiving is a school record for a running back.
Barkley ended his career as the school's career all-purpose yards leader with 5,538 yards.
Orleans Darkwa led the Giants with 751 yards rushing in 2017 T.J. McDonald Jersey , running behind a weak offense line.
By the way, the last time the Giants had the No. 2 overall pick was in 1981. The late George Young selected Lawrence Taylor.
锟斤拷 Gerald Green was at a crossroads.Released by Milwaukee in training camp, the career journeyman couldn’t find another NBA team that wanted him.
He contemplated playing internationally and in the G League, but no one had any use for the over-30 player with almost a decade of NBA experience.
“I was honestly contemplating retirement,” he told The Associated Press. “A lot of people don’t know that, but I was done.”
So he contacted his agent to put an expiration date on his basketball career.
“I was like: ‘Look man, when Jan. 1, 2018, hits, if I’m unsigned, I’m putting out a big statement on my Instagram letting everybody know, thank you for the awesome career over all these years but I’m done,'” he said. “‘I ain’t going to play no more.'”
Just four days shy of his self-imposed deadline, Green received the call that would change everything: His hometown Houston Rockets wanted him.
“Basketball was the last thing on my mind until I got that call,” he said. “Then it’s kind of like … ‘Are you serious?'”
By then, the 32-year Green had already “mentally checked out” of basketball. He was spending his days doing work in real estate and teaming with rapper Trae Tha Truth to help victims of Hurricane Harvey.
The Rockets took a chance on Green Michael Strahan Jersey , and now he could make it pay off.
Green’s years as an underdog – along with his length and athleticism – could be just what Houston needs Wednesday night when the Rockets try to even up the Western Conference finals after losing Game 1 to the Golden State Warriors.
He knew when he joined the Rockets it was a shot at redemption – on many levels.
He was traded to Houston as a 22-year-old in 2008 but released a little more than two weeks later after appearing in just one game.
When Green came to the Rockets the first time, he acknowledges he had the wrong attitude. The young man who’d had a modest upbringing on the South side of Houston had money after being drafted in the first round in 2005, and was coming off a memorable performance in the dunk contest at the 2008 All-Star Game where he blew out a candle atop a cupcake that was balanced on the back of the rim before throwing down a two-handed slam.
“It was right place at the wrong time,” he said of his mini-stint with the Rockets. “I just wasn’t focused. I still wanted to go out and enjoy my success of getting to the NBA instead of me trying to enjoy the work process of getting better.”
In the years since, he bounced around with six other NBA teams and spent two years playing in Russia and China. When he returned to Houston, he knew from the first day that his second stint was going to be special.
“As soon as I walked in the door I felt like everybody had their arms open to me like: ‘We need a hug. Come on, man. We’ve been waiting on you,'” he said mimicking a hug with his long muscular arms.
And the feeling was certainly mutual.
“To know him is to love him,” Chris Paul said. “He’s one of those people that if you don’t like Gerald Green, you’re telling me a lot about yourself.”
It was a new feeling for Green, who said he felt like some of his previous teammates wondered why he was on the team and never fully embraced him.
“I get judged a lot,” he said. “Maybe because of the way I talk, the way I look, I’m real quick to say a lot of stuff that maybe people don’t understand because that’s just me. I’m not the type of person that’s scripted … but on this team since Day 1, I could say something (crazy) and they ain’t never judged me for that.”
Coach Mike D’Antoni had known of the lanky forward with a knack for 3-pointers for years, but wasn’t sure what to expect when Houston signed him off the street.
He didn’t have to wait long. The day after he signed he scored 18 points Willie Brown Jersey , and in his fourth game and Houston’s first of the season without James Harden, who was nursing a hamstring injury, Green put on a show. He scored 27 points and made 7 of 10 3-pointers to help the Rockets to a win over Orlando. The next night he outdid himself, tying a career high with eight 3s and finishing with 29 points as Houston fell to Golden State.
Green, who played high school basketball in Houston, averaged more than 18 points in the seven games Harden was out.
He has continued to bring a spark off the bench, averaging 12.1 points in the regular season – his highest average since 2015. He credits his turnaround to the nurturing environment fostered by D’Antoni, who he calls a “confidence-giver.”
And despite his limited work, he’s become a fan favorite for his almost obsessive love for Houston.
Green arrives to almost every game in a jersey of one of Houston’s teams, and he has three tattoos that pay homage to the city. Running down the entire length of his left forearm is the word “Houston” in graffiti-style block letters. On the front of his left shoulder is ink replicating the sign for Interstate 45, a freeway that runs directly by where he was raised. The last one is a nod to the Houston Oilers, a baby blue oil derrick on the back of the same shoulder almost identical to the ones that once adorned their helmets.
But his representation of Houston doesn’t stop there. Each time he hits a 3-pointer, he contorts both of his hands into “H’s” and holds them high toward the crowd.
Says Harden: “He’s the most Houston person I Womens Albert Wilson Jersey
