Uh oh! Bill Belichick likes ex-Giant Markus Kuhn

As the New York Giants defense struggled, to put it mildly, the past couple of seasons defensive tackle Markus Kuhn was an easy and often vilified target for frustrated fans.

Sure, Kuhn wasn’t very good during his four seasons with the Giants. Problem is, though, all of the vitriol directed his way was misplaced. The problem wasn’t Kuhn, the problem was that largely because there wasn’t anyone else to turn to the Giants were giving starter snaps to a try-hard-but-not-very-talented seventh-round pick from Germany who had not actually played a whole lot of football.

Anyway, that’s rehashing old arguments or re-opening old wounds and that’s enough of that.

Kuhn left the Giants, who made no effort to keep him, as a free agent in the offseason. He ended up getting an opportunity from the New England Patriots. The universal reaction from Giants fans? “Oh my God, what if Bill Belichick actually turns Kuhn into a useful player?”

Well, don’t look now Giants fans but Belichick has recently been praising Kuhn’s work during Patriots training camp.

“Markus is a young player in terms of experience,” Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said in a Tuesday press conference. “He's a little older because of his situation, but a young player that's still getting better, works hard, smart, a good, tough kid.”

“He has good playing strength,” Belichick continued. “He played well for the Giants. We played against him last year and evaluated him prior to our game and also in our game. He's very competitive out there with that group.”

Kuhn, per Pats Pulpit, has gotten some first-team work with New England this summer. Belichick and Tom Coughlin know more football than any of us ever will, but it’s still hard to figure out what they see in Kuhn that others do not.