Rolle wants to reinvent himself at safety

Antrel Rolle was asked to do something foreign for the Giants this season. And he did it well. But it might have taken away from the qualities that made him the big free-agent safety the team landed last offseason.

Unlike when he played for the Cardinals and was a ball-hawking hitter in the secondary, the Giants had Rolle playing near the line of scrimmage for most of the season as part of their three-safety sets. He excelled there, especially in games against the Eagles when he was targeting Michael Vick. The problem was that when Rolle went back deep, he often felt out of sync. He had only one interception and just five passes defensed, and in the last two weeks in particular, he found himself in the middle of bad coverage on deep scoring passes.

"I have to get in the mind-set of being able to transform myself from being up as opposed to playing back deep," Rolle said while cleaning out his locker Monday. "I caught myself a couple of times when I was playing deep, things not being as clear as I'm used to them being back there just because I'm playing up so much that I lose focus of the primary things I'm used to targeting."

It would be like learning French as a second language, but losing the ability to speak effective English in the process.

"I took on a lot of responsibilities," Rolle said. "My grade sheet a lot of times would come back with five negative plays, six negative plays, just because my mind was just wandering. But through it all, I always hustled and tried to get around the ball somehow."

General manager Jerry Reese, who signed Rolle last offseason, said he was pleased with how Rolle played in his new position, which was more linebacker than safety. But he also pointed to the "too many explosive plays" as one of the problems on defense. And more than a few of those were because of Rolle.

"That's one of the things that was the most disappointing for me is that we gave up too many plays on the back end of the defense and in this league, you just can't give up explosive plays," Reese said. "A couple of games that gets you beat."

Rolle said he is confident he will rebound in 2011. "I've always been an incliner, I've never been a person to decline," he said. And he added that he will spend time this offseason studying the Giants' defense without the distractions of game plans and opponents to get a more firm grip on the system.

"He did good in that role for us," Reese said of Rolle's play near the line of scrimmage. "But . . . I think he thinks he could have played better for us. I do think he can play better and he thinks he can play better."

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(newsday.com)