Giants’ Ereck Flowers working toward being a more consistent player

Far from being a bust, the New York Giants expect Ereck Flowers to help anchor an offensive line that continues to be plagued by several question marks.

Last season, his rookie year, Flowers would have been considered a question mark for much of his rookie campaign. In fact, the early returns have been far from positive.

The plan all along was to slot Flowers in at right tackle in 2015 to learn for a year or maybe two and then move him to left tackle. But injuries forced the hands of the old coaching staff, shifting Flowers over to the most-scrutinized spot on the offensive line.

The Giants are convinced that an emphasis on technique this offseason will help rectify a situation that was pretty bad last year. Flowers didn’t look like he was ready to play and didn’t look like a first round pick.

“The thing with Ereck is he’s got a lot of ability, a lot of potential. The key thing we have to do with Ereck is develop the consistency. It’s exciting to work with someone like Ereck,” offensive line coach Mike Solari told reporters on Friday.

“Again, [head coach Ben McAdoo] has the practice set up beautifully for different situations and now it’s just a matter of continuing to coach him and keep having him ascend. The hardest thing in training camp is to be able to develop those habits and make them so that you can put them to work in a game environment. We’re working at it every day. Every day, we’ve got to be able to transfer that to the preseason to the regular season and he’s working.”

This offseason, the Giants lost out on offensive tackle Russel Okung because the veteran free agent wanted to play left tackle and management was unwilling to move Flowers. Such is there confidence level in the second-year player that they are committed to him at the blindside.

The hope is that things slow down this year for Okung and that improved technique will help him turn into a solid left tackle. If he holds to the technique he’s being taught instead of relying on his physical ability as he was want to do in college at Miami, then Flowers can thrive.

“Yeah, I would say that happened sometimes. I did that more so last year, so this year I am really trying to work on my technique and going in with my coach and watching film,” Flowers said on Friday. “I am trying to focus on that this year.”