can someone paste the 2nd article?
ALBANY, Aug. 3 — It was just about a year ago when James Butler, a little-known Giants safety, was cleared to practice after surgery on his kidney. He reluctantly met with reporters, and short stories were written about the surgery he had to unclog a blockage, the extra padding he would wear under his uniform and the extra fluids doctors told him to consume. And Butler, a backup, was barely heard from again.
But that changed with the first practice of this season’s training camp. In their most surprising depth-chart maneuver, the Giants handed Butler a starting job and demoted Will Demps, a high-priced free agent signed in 2006.
Butler, befitting his personality, remained reluctant to talk about it.
“We’ll see, man,” said Butler, who said he felt no effects from last year’s kidney ailment. “We ain’t even had one game yet. We ain’t started a preseason game yet. So just be quiet and play the game.”
Staying quiet seems to be in his nature, but the Giants are hoping to hear more noise from their safeties this season. On paper last year, Demps and Gibril Wilson looked like a fear-inducing tandem. In reality, they were the ones playing scared — mostly of making mistakes in an increasingly complex scheme.
Under the restructured defense of the new coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, who arrived after years as the linebackers coach in Philadelphia, Wilson hopes to rediscover the instinctive play that marked his rookie year (2004), when he had 3 interceptions and 49 tackles in seven starts.
“My mentality my rookie year was, ‘See ball, go get ball,’ ” Wilson said.
“It wasn’t complicated. There was nothing tricky to it. It was just go get the ball. I think these past couple years, I haven’t done that as much as I would like to. This year, with a brand-new defense, I’m going to be the way I know how to play: fast, and if I see the ball, go get the ball.”
The Giants moved Wilson to free safety from strong safety, and inserted Butler at strong safety. The differences in the positions are not always obvious, but the free safety generally spends more time roaming the middle of the field and less time near the line of scrimmage playing the run or defending the tight end. Giants Coach Tom Coughlin said that safeties must be able to play both positions.
What makes the fight for a starting safety spot especially intriguing is that, unlike a third cornerback, a backup safety rarely plays, even on passing downs. Last season, Demps started every game and had 116 tackles. Butler started none, became a leader on special teams, and had only 11 tackles on defense.
Butler, a former high school triple-jump state champion in Georgia, played at Georgia Tech but was undrafted in 2005. At 6 feet 3 inches and 215 pounds, he is taller and rangier than the Giants’ other safeties.
“He is obviously a big man who is fast and covers a lot of ground,” Coughlin said. “He is smart, and very, very focused. Having a chance after fighting his way through a year in which he was ill, and then to have an opportunity to come back and be healthy and have a chance to play, I think all these things are falling into place for him.”
That sounded great to Butler, who listens more than he speaks. He is the youngest of six children from tiny Climax, Ga. (“It’s nine miles from Bainbridge,” he explained, helpfully), home of the not-so-famous Swine Time Festival, a celebration of all things pig, held annually on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
“A lot of people from a lot of places come down for that,” Butler said.
His eyes widened when the talk moved away from his kidney and his roster spot and toward his mother’s cooking (macaroni and cheese, collard greens and sweet-potato pie are his favorites) and the slow-paced lifestyle of home.
A few moments later, with a smile and a thank you, Butler was gone, destined to be seen more than heard.
The devil is in the details here. Wilson is likely to take a hit in the tackle columns if he's not used in the box as much, but the comp here is Brian Dawkins, who plays the same role in the scheme Steve Spagnuolo is bringing over from Philadelphia. Wilson has been an above-average big play guy in the past and should produce similar stats. If the Giants don't rotate the three safeties in such a way that Wilson sits a few series a game, Wilson should still have low level DB1 value. I think the move is more a nod to Wilson's big play capability than a knock against his overall play and that he'll remain a safe play. Better in big play systems than tackle heavy systems, but safe in both.
