In what will be his second year in the NFL, New York Giants tight end Evan Engram has a brand new position coach. In Lunda Wells, a former offensive line coach, it would be easy to assume that he wants Ingram to improve his blocking, something the tight end has been criticized about in the past.
Instead, Wells said he wants to maximize his young star’s strengths to best fit in this revamped offense.
Everyone knew that Engram could catch, the Giants first-round pick a year ago one of the best receiving tight ends in SEC history. But the knock on him was that he couldn’t block and was really just a glorified wide receiver.
Engram, to his credit, did show better than expected in his blocking during his rookie year but will need to improve in this component to become a more well-rounded player. In Wells, he has a former offensive line coach who neither coached nor played as a tight end before.
It makes for quite an interesting blend but Wells sees the promise and excitement in his young tight end.
“Honestly again, he’s a guy that we all understand he has a unique skill set in terms of the pass game, but he’s a very sharp kid and he can do a little bit of it all,” Wells said last week. “I can’t say that I can see him as just a guy that is split out because I think we’d be doing an injustice to him because he is a very sharp kid and a willing blocker and a guy that’s willing to do everything that goes into it. He’s a guy that we can play at the Y-tight end, we can split him out. I think you’re going to see some of that this year in terms of him being able to play in a lot of different spots.”
Last year, Engram had 64 catches for 722 yards and six touchdowns for a 3-13 team. He clearly has potential and has shown sustained flashes on a pretty bad offense that certainly point to Engram being a star in the making.
“Just like all the other guys in the room, we all understand that he has a unique skill set that allows him to be a pretty good athlete, a pretty good player in the pass game,” Wells said. “Potential-wise, his ceiling is real high. He’s a high character guy, he’s a guy that comes in and works hard, so he has a lot of potential in year two. He understands just like anything that he has to approach it as doing his job to the best of his ability better than it has been done before and I think that’s the role that every guy in that room is going to have to embrace to continue to reach the potential that they can possibly reach.”
