Giants’ 90-man roster: CB Grant Haley in a fight to keep starting role in slot

Grant Haley has 10 games and 429 defensive snaps worth of NFL experience. With six cornerbacks on the roster who have never played an NFL snap, that snippet of playing time makes Haley a veteran in a secondary filled with an extraordinary number of young players.

Let’s take a closer look at Haley as we continue profiling the 90 players the Giants will bring to training camp this summer.

The basics

Height: 5-foot-9
Weight: 190
Age: 23
Position: Cornerback
Experience: 1

How he got here

Haley made the Giants’ practice squad as an undrafted free agent out of Penn State last season. He ended up playing in 10 games, including nine starts as the Giants’ slot cornerback. Haley had 33 tackles and two passes defensed. He finished 11th among 50 qualified cornerback in snaps per reception (10.2), but his passer rating against (131.1) was 46th among those 50 cornerbacks.

2019 outlook

Haley watched as the Giants drafted DeAndre Baker, Julian Love and Corey Ballentine. They already had Sam Beal, taken in last year’s supplemental draft. Throw in former AAF cornerback Henre’ Toliver and practice squad holdover Ronald Zamort and that’s a lot of inexperienced players at cornerback.

Antonio Hamilton has 25 games of NFL experience, but most of that has been on special teams. Tony Lippett started 13 games for the Miami Dolphins in 2016, but missed 2017 with an Achilles injury and played just three games for the Giants last season.

Love, a fourth-round pick, is the player who seems to be in direct competition with Haley for the slot cornerback role. To this point, Haley has worked with the first team and Love with the second.

This promises to be one of the most interesting competitions of the preseason.