Every summer there is one player who comes out of nowhere to capture the hearts and imaginations of Giants fans everywhere.
This year, that player is defensive lineman Elijah Chatman, a smallish (5-11, 278 pounds), yet powerfully built defensive lineman whose hustle and willingness to earn has put him on a direct path to a place on the Giants 53-man roster.
Chatman, who played his college ball at SMU, initially came to the Giants on a tryout basis during their rookie minicamp. He mpressed defensive line coaches Andre Patterson and Bryan Cosx so much that the rookie was immediately offered a free agent contract to come to training camp to compete.
And compete he has. Last week against the Houston Texans, Chatman made the play of preseason when he chased down Texans running back J.J. Taylor some 40 yards down the field.
"There was nobody left to catch him," Chatman told reporters Tuesday after practice. "I felt like I was the only person that could make the play. So, it just made me go that much harder."
"That was a heck of an effort play," coach Brian Daboll said. "That's something you evaluate is people's effort, how they run to the football … That was a great effort by him."
Chatman is just the latest example of the Giants commitment to leaving no stone unturned in their quest to find talent, and he is a find that assistant general manager Brandon Brown is particularly proud of.
“I can't talk about Elijah without talking about our area scouts. Again, them leaving no stone unturned. You're talking about (Area Scout) Blaise Bell, you're talking about (College Scout) Justin Marcus, (Area Scout) Scott Hamill, and when you go to SMU you do the full discovery process on Elijah, where you figure out, ‘Okay, what makes him an outlier at his size?’ because you're not going to find many 5 '11 defensive tackles,” Brown said.
“Well, he was a captain. He was actually, for his size, he was a 1,600-yard rusher in high school as a running back slash fullback. He had a pseudo, call it fullback package on offense at SMU, and Scott (Hamill), Justin (Marcus), Blaise (Bell) sending back notes on, seeing him run down on punt coverage and kickoff return.
“And in his background, he's a decorated high school wrestler and powerlifter and he's a son of a lumberjack. You put that all together, there are a lot of characteristics from an intangible standpoint, and then also the metrics, leaning on our analytics department.”
Chatman is the very definition of good things coming in small packages. He’s already earned first team reps on the defense and the young man has lived up to the expectations and then some.
“The effort and the want to, we see that every day. And there's a cool transition when you start seeing teammates root for guys,” Brown said.
“When you start seeing (defensive lineman) Dex (Dexter Lawrence) rooting for Elijah, taking him to the side, giving him some pointers because it's like, ‘Hey, I could be playing with this guy.’ or ‘There's something here that I like that I want to help develop.’ So, it's been cool to see.”
Chatman, who in two preseason games has played on 73 snaps defensive and has five tackles (three solo), one stop for, and one quarterback hit, knew he was up against the eight ball when he completed his college career at SMU. But in realizing that he had no control over how much more, if any, he’d grow, he worried about what he could control: his play on the field.
“In this league, anything can happen, you know what I'm saying?” Chatman said. “I have to just stay focused on what I can control and keep my head down and let God do the rest."
