Kyle Rudolph watched the Giants from afar last year and saw a familiar but encouraging sight.
As New York won six games and just missed a playoff berth, Rudolph thought back to his 2014 season with the Vikings, when Minnesota also had a first-year head coach and won seven games that easily could have been a handful more.
“I see this team at a place where we were early on in coach [Mike] Zimmer’s time there,” Rudolph told Tiki and Tierney on Tuesday. “We have a ton of young talent, you have a core group of guys that can be together for the foreseeable future. You just have to grow and learn how to start winning these close games and not beat yourself.
“In coach Zimmer’s first year, we went 7-9, and when you go back through that season, and you can find two, three or four games where you’re like ‘man, we had no business losing that game, we beat ourselves….we didn’t execute these fundamentals.’”
Rudolph saw the same with last year’s Giants, who lost four games by less than a touchdown and nearly won a division title with a young core.
“You can look at three or four different games where they had no business losing,” Rudolph said.
Rudolph’s Vikings went on to win 11 games after that 2014 campaign, and went 13-3 two years later, as Minnesota put together a consistent competitor with that young core that had to learn to win close games in the early going. For the Giants to do the same, they will have to have better control of the trenches, as the offensive line has been a consistent source of criticism in recent years, and is under the microscope again as Week 1 approaches. But Rudolph doesn’t think the blame should be put solely on that unit.
“I think the biggest thing for these guys, they’re young players playing together,” Rudolph said. “The more reps they get together, the better they are. An offensive line is a unit, five guys that have to play together. In my opinion, they have the toughest job in our game…but I have all the faith in the world in our guys up front. I see the way they work every day and the way they prepare. I have all the confidence in the world that they’re going to go out there and do really well.”
Daniel Jones will also be heading into a crucial season in his third year, as the Giants will have to continue to evaluate whether or not he is the franchise’s long-term option at quarterback. Rudolph, who played against Jones when he was with Minnesota, remembers his secondary, including star safety Harrison Smith, raving about Jones’ talent after that game, and expects that to shine through this season.
“It’s not fair to him when you lose one of the best running backs in football and are no longer a two-dimensional offense,” Rudolph said. “You’ve got injuries at the receiver position, the tight end position. Continuity is so important for a young quarterback, and I think our organization has done an unbelievable job in putting pieces around Daniel, so his natural ability and talent…can shine through.”
Jones struggled and threw for 11 touchdowns and 10 interceptions last year, but with the return of Saquon Barkley and the arrival of additional weapons like Rudolph and Kenny Golladay, he could take a step forward in year three. A lot of that could ride on the health of Barkley, who Rudolph can’t wait to line up with on Sunday.
“Being a tight end that’s involved in the run game, when you block for a guy like that and the film clicks on on Monday, you don’t want to be the reason he gets tackled because he has an opportunity to hit a home run every single play.
“Saquon and I were able to get kind of close to one another because our timeline has been very similar. We rehabbed together, we were on the PUP list to start training camp together…I’m living off some of these younger players, and he brings so much energy to the work we’re doing.”
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