Giants safety Landon Collins referred to cornerback Eli Apple as a “cancer” last season in one of many harsh comments directed at the 2016 first-round pick during a year that saw him struggle on the field and in the locker room.
The Giants promised Apple a clean slate after Pat Shurmur was hired as the team’s head coach, which Apple said he appreciated and which has started getting filled with far more complimentary assessments. Collins said Monday that Apple is growing up, “doing his thing and playing great ball” during the team’s offseason program while a new teammate had an even more rhapsodic review.
Cornerback William Gay thinks Apple can do a lot more than just bounce back to playing a role for the Giants this season.
“Very athletic guy. I watched him from afar being in Pittsburgh, and then also when he was at Ohio State,” Gay said, via the New York Post. “You just see the things that he can do on the field. I’m ready to help him any type of way that I can, because I want to be in his speech when he becomes a Hall of Famer, and say, ‘I had an old guy William Gay that helped me a little bit.’ I’m gonna give him everything I can, but from the looks of it, he’s ready to go. And I just love his enthusiasm every day on the practice field.”
Plans for a bronze bust should probably remain on hold for a while, but a good season for Apple should put a pin in any other bust talk that cropped up as a miserable 2017 season came to an end.
