Jack Stoll eyeing Giants’ open starting tight end job: ‘Cutthroat business’

Darren Waller murky status was a green light for Jack Stoll. 

The former Eagles tight end saw a potential Giant opportunity for a starting gig — only an hour and a half away — and jumped on it in March on a one-year $1,105,000 contract. 

More than a month after Waller’s official retirement and almost a week into training camp, it seems the vacancy still remains. 

The Giants have rotated the tight ends throughout training camp drills, and there doesn’t appear to be a clear top guy constantly getting reps with the first team and Daniel Jones. 

“I think anytime there’s even a sliver [of an] opportunity — that’s what you fight and claw for,” Stoll told The Post at training camp on Sunday. “There are guys in the league who stay for five years just to get an opportunity like that. So whenever something like that pops open, I don’t take it for granted. I’m trying to make the most of every rep I get out there, do anything I can to maximize any rep we get out there because there are also a lot of guys in the room. 

“So, it just means you got to go out there when your number’s called and make a play. It’s exciting, and that’s the NFL. It’s a cutthroat business.” 

Stoll, 26 and entering his fourth year, had a brief taste of the leading role the past two years due to injuries to Eagles’ starter Dallas Goedert.

When Goedert went down with a forearm injury for Weeks 10-12 last season, Stoll caught two of his four targets for 17 total yards across those three starts. 

He worked his way up as far as he could go in the Eagles system as an undrafted rookie, and with Goedert holding down the role, Stoll decided it was time to move on. 

“It’s a team that obviously didn’t have the year that they wanted last year. I wanted to be able to come in and make an impact on an organization,” Stoll said of the Giants’ appeal. “I thought this was an awesome organization. The players here think so. Daboll was Coach of the Year two years ago. So, it’s a no-brainer. It’s only on the rise.” 

Stoll’s top competitor for the job is third-year player Daniel Bellinger, who stepped in for Waller in the wake of the veteran’s injuries last season.

Bellinger was also credited by Stoll for making his own transition to New York far easier. 

Fourth-round pick Theo Johnson, along with Lawrence Cager and veteran Chris Manhertz, could make cases as well. The competition will ramp up starting with pads on Monday. 

The Giants released quarterback Nathan Rourke on Sunday morning.

The team claimed him off waivers one day after he was released by the Patriots in May. 

Daboll said Rourke did not ask to be released and that it’s the Giants’ plan to go with three quarterbacks for training camp. 

The plan for three, however, doesn’t have anything to do with injury-prone Jones, Daboll said. 

Given a chance to commit that RT Evan Neal (ankle) would be ready for Week 1, Daboll did not. 

Daboll said Neal, who is on the physically unable to perform list, is day-to-day and “getting better.” 

C John Michael Schmitz went through an individual practice Sunday after not participating at the end of a training camp session a few days ago. 

“He had a little shoulder. … He’ll be OK, but [we will] monitor him,” Daboll said. 

Johnson took his first training camp session on Sunday after he endured a hip flexor issue and was on the physically unable to perform list at the start of camp. 

“I feel great. Legs are fresh,” the rookie tight end said. “Glad to be out there.” 

The Penn State alumnus caught the first pass from Jones on Sunday, quickly up the middle in an 11-on- 11 drill and will be full go on Monday in the padded practice. 

Daboll credited a lot of his offseason 100-pound weight loss to Pilates. 

During training camp, he is managing to get in a 30- to 45-minute session, but it will soon start to take a backseat as the season heats up. 

“It’s called [Pilates Boutique by DTR] in Wyckoff. It’s a friend of my wife’s, and we were having dinner on a Sunday a few months ago, and I said, ‘Hey, I think I want to try that,’ ” Daboll said. “So I started going. The first few weeks, I was not too pleased with it. I was pretty sore but trying to stick with it. You go pretty early in the morning. As you get older, there’s less things you can do, so we’ll see how that goes. We don’t have a lot of time to do other things other than football.”