Sinorice’s world . . . turning Northward at last?

Aug/17/08 10:18 PM Filed in: Sinorice Moss
SinoriceMoss
Few players have been followed more closely this preseason than the man Ernie Accorsi traded up to draft with the 44th pick in 2006.

Bagging Sinorice Moss made for exuberance that draft day.  The Giants’ brain trust had struck, swift and hard.  They’d moved up and, gosh darn, they’d gotten their man.  Like big brother Santana, he was real fast.  And real quick.

So much so that he was all but impossible to cover.  Opposing DBs weren’t going to be able to stay with him.  He would make big plays.  He would drive enemy defenses to distraction.  He was just what Big Blue needed to inject explosiveness into its offense.

The coaches soon set excitedly to working with their new toy.  Through OTAs, into training camp.  Dreaming up and practicing ways Moss would be used to torment opposing defenses.  What life in a harem is for Casanova is what this was for the Giants’ offensive coaches.  The coaches were having fun.  It was all going so well.

Then one day, without warning, their new toy broke.  A strain to a quadriceps muscle Moss had suffered in pre-draft workouts had reasserted itself.  And wouldn’t let go.  Before anyone knew it, most of Moss’s rookie season had vanished.

Moss managed to catch all of 5 balls for 25 yards that year – a handful of meaningless dinks that got Moss technically onto the stat sheet while accomplishing nothing for the team.  For Big Blue’s coaches and front office, the numbers were a cruel mockery of their draft day hopes.

Last year, Moss’s second season, he caught 21 balls for 225 yards.  Some for first downs.  Big plays?  Still none of those.  The injury bug?  It struck again.  Progress?  Well . . . sort of.

But not enough to satisfy the fans.  From them has come a steady trickle of urgings to this site — not to mention some recent Albany training camp spectator shouts — calling for Moss to be released.

Indeed, with passes in this year’s June minicamp and initial training camp practices too often eluding Moss’s grasp, the Giants’ roster burgeoning with new WR talent — and all that added to a slow first 2 seasons on Moss’s Big Blue resume — team observers were starting to agree # 83 could be gone before the season opener.

But a funny thing has happened to Moss on his way to the waiver wire.  He has shown up ready to work in every practice of a training camp in which Burress, Tyree, Manningham, Smith, and others have missed time.  That has led to Moss receiving, and profiting from, a plethora of reps.

No, he hasn’t turned into the team’s most glue-fingered pass-catcher.  That, perhaps, will never happen.  But as camp has dragged on, Moss’s hands have betrayed him with diminishing regularity.  And the positive plays have become increasingly frequent.

Moss has caught an abundance of deep balls, including one in the Detroit preseason game that, if not underthrown, would have gone for a touchdown.  The respect his deep speed commands, when combined with his ability to break off patterns suddenly, enables him to come open on underneath routes almost at will.

That capability gives him a base, something he can hang his hat on.  And something the Giants’ offensive planners can exploit.

In light of Moss’s recent progress, one of the beat writers at the Giants’ training camp earlier this week ventured that Moss “seems to be solidifying his spot on the roster”.  Here’s that item.  While only time will reveal whether the coaching staff agrees, the arrow on Moss seems to be moving Northward.

(mvn.com)