NFL
New York Giants 2024 Training Camp Preview: CB Stantley Thomas-Oliver
The New York Giants desperately needed to address the cornerback room for 2024 after a season in which they looked horrendous. It’s worth noting however that cornerbacks in Wink Martindale’s defense have historically looked worse than they really are due to how near-impossible it is to play in that scheme.
NFL wide receivers are more dynamic than ever before. NFL offenses are more creative than ever before. Martindale’s defensive system ignored all of that by putting cornerbacks in position to line up and play man to man coverage on a consistent basis, something that’s not a sustainable defensive scheme in modern football.
The Giants have invested in the position under general manager Joe Schoen with draft picks but this offseason they also used free agency to bring in corners like Tre Herndon, David Long Jr., and Stantley Thomas-Oliver. With all of the new names in the cornerback room, there’s going to be competition between the recent draft picks, veteran free agents, and undrafted free agents.
That competition is placed on a more even playing field due to the massive change in the defensive scheme from Martindale’s blitz-happy, man-coverage defense to Shane Bowen’s zone-heavy defense that relies on generating pressure without sacrificing coverage by blitzing.
Height: 6-0
Weight: 190
EXP: 4
School: Florida International
How Acquired: FA-23
Thomas-Oliver signed a futures contract with the Giants following the 2023 season that’s a one-year deal worth $1,055,000 with no guaranteed money. The minimum salary possible for Thomas-Oliver to make this season was $1,055,000 due to only having three accrued seasons.
An accrued season is when a player spends six or more games on the team’s active or inactive roster, excluding practice squad players. For Thomas-Oliver, he’s been in the NFL for four years but spent 2023 as a practice squad player so he was unable to accrue a season last year.
I’m not expecting Thomas-Oliver to make the Giants roster this season. It’s nothing against him and not necessarily an indictment of his talent but the facts of the matter are that he’s been in the NFL for four seasons now and has hardly any experience with just 94 defensive snaps, the last of which came in 2021.
Thomas-Oliver was a project dating back to his NFL Draft days as a wide receiver that moved to cornerback and was trying to learn the position. In order to learn the position, a player has to get snaps in games and reps in practice but due to consistently dealing with injuries he’s been unable to develop properly.
In 2021, Thomas-Oliver missed time being placed on short-term injured reserve. In 2022, Thomas-Oliver ended the season on injured reserve. As previously mentioned, Thomas-Oliver was given the waived/injured tag at the end of the preseason in 2023 by the Panthers.
Perhaps with Bowen’s defensive system being so zone-heavy, Thomas-Oliver will be able to crack the rotation in the cornerback room since he played for Phil Snow with the Panthers, another zone-heavy scheme.
The best case that Thomas-Oliver has to make the roster depends on if he has significantly improved his awareness and IQ in coverage. In theory, his experience as a former wide receiver should help him force turnovers if he can pick up the scheme.
It also doesn’t bode well for Thomas-Oliver that the Giants cornerback room has an overabundance of youth with five cornerbacks having three years or less of NFL experience.
Generally when the starters at a position are so young, the depth is expected to have more of a veteran presence on the field. While Thomas-Oliver has been in the NFL for four years, he’s still inexperienced and raw, where veterans like Darnay Holmes and Long Jr. have been in the NFL for longer than Thomas-Oliver but are the same age as him.
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