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Rolle on Nicks: "The Silent Killer."

Big Blue '56 : 7/9/2013 9:18 pm
From Total access via License Plate Guy:

"Rolle said on NFL Total Access that facing Cruz is much different than going against Hakeem Nicks. “Totally different to defend,'' Rolle said. "Hakeem Nicks, I think he is a little more deceptive than Victor Cruz. When you look at Nicks you might not think he is moving as fast but when you are up against him, running with him, you understand this guy is moving. His hands are probably the biggest I’ve ever seen on a receiver. I call him ‘The Silent killer.’ His routes are so smooth; everything he does is so smooth. While Victor Cruz is going to always put a little bit of salsa on it. I think he goes out there and gives you the wiggles, gives you the shake and he is exceptionally quick. If he takes a step on you, you can pretty much cancel Christmas.”
I watched that...  
bradshaw44 : 7/9/2013 9:22 pm : link
The shocker was McNabb saying Eli and Cruz are elite and deserve that respect and not to be compared to lesser players. And I paraphrased that FYI.
damnit i knew we should have  
NewYorkGiants : 7/9/2013 9:22 pm : link
Signed nicks instead of cruz
If he takes a step on you, you can pretty much cancel Christmas  
JohnB : 7/9/2013 9:23 pm : link
:)
Nicks  
Stagger Lee : 7/9/2013 9:27 pm : link
is the definition of beast. He is more overlooked by fans than actually players though. Teams should take him really serious. I think Cruz benefits more from Nicks than Nicks does from Cruz.
Last sentence is amazing  
tikimvp : 7/9/2013 9:29 pm : link
.
Sorry that post didn't make much sense  
Stagger Lee : 7/9/2013 9:30 pm : link
14 hr work day and a few dogfish raison d'etres deep
Love both guys (and Rolle)...  
arcarsenal : 7/9/2013 9:32 pm : link
Just hope we can keep Nicks. He's my favorite dude on the team. I love how he doesn't care about the spotlight or attention or any of that.. he's just a quiet, softspoken dude who can beast it on the field.
Despite  
Stagger Lee : 7/9/2013 9:36 pm : link
the rumors he would like to go back to Carolina, I think 88 knows he would benefit from being with Eli
Yep Stagger  
snumber6 : 7/9/2013 9:48 pm : link
With Eli ... run the route and the ball will be there ... Lot's better than running rampant yelling Cam over here I'm open CAAAAMMM !!!!
When the ball is in the air  
PEEJ : 7/9/2013 9:48 pm : link
it belongs to Nicks. He has an uncanny ability to adjust and find the ball and use his body and hands to win any contest
"If he takes a step on you, you can pretty much cancel Christmas.”"  
Umenyiora72 : 7/9/2013 10:03 pm : link
HAHAHAHAHA. I love it.

An overlooked part of Cruz's game is his intelligence  
Milton : 7/9/2013 10:15 pm : link
His ability to be see the defense exactly as Eli sees it is what makes him so hard to stop. That's why you have audio of Carlos Rogers saying he can't cover the option routes Cruz was running. There's a trust that Eli has in Cruz that I think goes unappreciated.
I was heartbroken when Steve Smith  
Reb8thVA : 7/9/2013 10:18 pm : link
Left an will feel the same for Nicks if he goes.
His 2011 postseason  
bceagle05 : 7/9/2013 10:27 pm : link
was just incredible. He's an artist out on the football field.
Nicks !!!  
Blue Blood : 7/9/2013 10:36 pm : link
Enjoy !!!
Nicks Highlight VIdeo - ( New Window )
Nicks is my favorite Giant  
chris r : 7/10/2013 4:34 am : link
he should retire a Giant with every Giant receiving record.
Chris,  
Big Blue '56 : 7/10/2013 7:40 am : link
I think Cruz will. I believe he remains the healthier of the two. Can't know for sure, but the odds might seem to be in VC's favor. TBD
I hope we keep Nicks  
mdthedream : 7/10/2013 7:50 am : link
but I think the Giants made the right choice only because of injury concerns with Nicks. You just can't ignore them.
mtd,  
Big Blue '56 : 7/10/2013 7:59 am : link
If Nicks can play "healthy," at worst we'll franchise him imv and continue to negotiate a long-termer with him. However, they might let him walk, if(perhaps a big IF) Randle takes a tremendous leap in production. That could be the wildcard in all of this, imo
I think Cruz is the safer bet  
Osi Osi Osi OyOyOy : 7/10/2013 8:03 am : link
to stay healthy the next 5 years, but if both are healthy I think Nicks is a little bit better.

The 2 best Giants WR performances I've seen are Nicks vs. Arizona in 2011 and Nicks vs. Tampa in 2012.

I'm not considering the importance of the game in terms of Championship implications, otherwise all 4 of Nicks' playoff games during the SB run top the 2 games I mentioned. But just straight up controlling a game from the 1st minute to the last and willing your team to a W, I've never seen a Giants receiver do what Nicks did in those 2 games (Cruz and Plax have come close though). His physicality and hands just allows him to dominate regardless of the coverage. Talib was playing Nicks so tough in that Tampa game, but Nicks just owned him time after time after time. And the Cardinals DBs including Peterson were all over Nicks in that game, just perfect coverage and Nicks still shit on them.

He's my favorite player on the team too. Health is literally the only knock on him as a player. When he's healthy he's capable of doing some special things, like he did during the Super Bowl run. If he stays healthy and Randle takes the next step... big things.
Great video  
SwirlingEddie : 7/10/2013 8:04 am : link
And if Nicks thinks Cam or anyone else can make those ballsy throws as well as Eli, he's out of his mind.
Gunna get hell for this and maybe it's been too long  
mrvax : 7/10/2013 8:06 am : link
but to me, Nicks (healthy) is every bit as good as Michael Irvin was.
....  
BrettNYG10 : 7/10/2013 8:07 am : link
Nicks might be a guy that plays 12-14 games a year, always missing a handful due to random injuries. I'm okay with that, actually, and think he's a better player than Cruz when healthy.
...  
BrettNYG10 : 7/10/2013 8:07 am : link
And to clarify, I think Cruz is a top ten receiver and that the gap isn't that significant.
Mvrvax  
Blue Blood : 7/10/2013 8:08 am : link
my Dad and I say the same thing. Thats who his game reminds me of the most.
mrvax,  
Curtis in VA : 7/10/2013 8:16 am : link
why would you catch hell for that? He's been compared to Michael Irvin since college.
Blue Blood nice video!  
gidiefor : Mod : 7/10/2013 8:54 am : link
Nicks is a very different player than Cruz - he is so physical and physically gifted - he can out-power and out athleti-size a defender - there are so many examples of it on the video Blue Blood found - Nicks just goes up for the ball with a defender draped all over him and it's no contest - he is awesome

I think Randle has the same kind of skill set - that he can go up for the ball smoothly and confidently in traffic and come away with it

there some great footage in there of Nicks owning Tarell Brown (25)of the 49ers a number of times - and Brown is wrapped up with him physically in each contest.
Cruz is harder to cover  
Greg from LI : 7/10/2013 9:16 am : link
Nicks is so strong that it doesn't matter how tight the coverage is - he can still make the catch
That 10-yard  
Bockman : 7/10/2013 9:50 am : link
comback to the outside shoulder is almost impossible to defend. Eli and Nicks execute it to perfection.
Bock...  
BillKo : 7/10/2013 11:06 am : link
but not last year, that part of the Eli/Nicks game was definitely off.

They should get back to it this year.
yea that play was just off this past year  
Osi Osi Osi OyOyOy : 7/10/2013 11:07 am : link
it pissed me off lol. Hopefully it had more to do with Nicks' injury ruining the timing of that play than it did with defenses finally solving it.
Curtis  
mrvax : 7/10/2013 11:08 am : link
A lot of BBI posters flip out when you compare a current player to a HOF guy. BTW: Funny how I HATED Irvin when he was playing. He'd get away with a crap load of penalties.
Nicks is the most talented WR this franchise  
Toastt34 : 7/10/2013 12:09 pm : link
has ever seen and when he's on, he's top 5 in the NFL. Outside of Eli, he's the most valuable member of the entire team.
Health is still the variable that we have no control over  
Bob in Newburgh : 7/10/2013 12:19 pm : link
When both are healthy, I believe it is Nicks over Cruz, and it is not even close.

Cruz is a great player, but Nicks is on an entirely different plateau.

If Cruz signing becomes the reason we cannot re-up Nicks it is a poor allocation of resources. Getting someone who can beat single coverage from the slot (see Steve Smith) is a lot easier than getting an outside WR who demands double coverage and still puts up numbers.
I think the overlooked part of Cruz  
santacruzom : 7/10/2013 12:23 pm : link
is how fast his reflexes are, which can definitely be a component of intelligence (or at least, appear as intelligence). I just think he processes information and then physically responds to it faster than your average player.
I don't get these  
santacruzom : 7/10/2013 12:29 pm : link
"it's not even close" comments. By what measure is it not even close? Are you basing that on imagining how Cruz would fare in Nicks' position or whether he can duplicate the kind of plays Nicks makes? If so, you have to flip that around and try to imagine Nicks in Cruz's position as well.

At the end of the day (thanks Rolle!), you simply base your assessment of a receiver on how well they help a team move the ball and/or score the ball when it decides to throw it. Nicks performs some of the traits that can lead to that result better than Cruz does. But the inverse of that is true as well.
Bob, Cruz should not be the reason we don't re-sign Nicks.  
Big Blue '56 : 7/10/2013 12:35 pm : link
This contract for Cruz is a steal for us imo, especially since he's such a terrific player entering his prime.

As has been stated, Reese as a GM and Abrams as the cap guy are amongst the best in the NFL..

We will re-sign Nicks(franchise if necessary) if he can stay healthy. The only thing preventing an ultimate re-signing is his HEALTH imo
Osi oy  
mako J : 7/10/2013 12:57 pm : link
What about Plax's domination of Al Harris and the Packers in '07 NFCC?
Sticky the Video!  
CT Charlie : 7/10/2013 10:51 pm : link
It explains why we didn't make the playoffs last year. Wow.
barely any of those highlights included 2012  
Neverend : 7/11/2013 5:50 am : link
save for his game against tampa bay. says a lot

i think only fitz and andre johnson had a better 3 year start to a career than nicks (and maclin too i think). damn. 2012 was a major step back
what about me??  
chris r : 7/11/2013 5:55 am : link
- arsenic.
chris  
Big Blue '56 : 7/11/2013 7:29 am : link
???
mako, that was a classic performance  
Osi Osi Osi OyOyOy : 7/11/2013 7:42 am : link
and there are a handful of other great Plax games and Cruz games that you could argue were just as good or better than those 2 Nicks games. The Plax game vs. Al Harris obviously trumps the two Nicks games I mentioned in the grand scheme of things. That was just an all-time one on one ass whooping in a crucial spot by Plax.

But there's just something about the way Nicks dominated those 2 games vs. tight coverage that sticks out. It just felt like I was watching a Hall of Famer play. Maybe I'm just biased to Nicks' style of play, I do find it more visually pleasing than Cruz's quickness based game and Plax's size based game.
BB56  
chris r : 7/11/2013 7:49 am : link
isn't arsenic known as the silent killer?
;)  
Big Blue '56 : 7/11/2013 8:14 am : link
.
haha - visually pleasing  
Neverend : 7/11/2013 1:02 pm : link
thats the perfect way to describe watching nicks

theres something about the way he catches the ball and moves out of his breaks that passes the eyeball test for me. thats why i cant help but get a little ticked when guys out of the draft get compared to nicks, even if the idea behind the comparison is accurate. nicks is just on another planet. he plays bigger than his size but doesnt have the movement limitations of a bigger wideout, huge hands, great route running, can play fineese, physical, and beat you with his savvy too. just a great overall talent.

will probably go thru a minor state of depression if he leaves. its gonna be tough to swallow for a long time
Osi  
mako J : 7/11/2013 6:16 pm : link
fair enough.

And I agree, love Nick's game.
thats all good until  
Blue Baller : 7/11/2013 6:45 pm : link
he becomes known as Silent but Deadly
I've said this several times on this board, and I'll say it again  
GeofromNJ : 7/11/2013 9:00 pm : link
Hakeem Nicks, when healthy, is the best receiver in Giants history. And that includes Toomer, Ernest Gray, Homer Jones, Plaxico Burress, Del Shofner, and Victor Cruz.
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