Giants 2021 roster profile: CB Quincy Wilson

Quincy Wilson was once a promising young cornerback, a second-round pick out of Florida by the Indianapolis Colts in the 2017 NFL Draft.

Now, entering his age 25 season, Wilson is clinging desperately to his career. Can he salvage it with the Giants?

Let’s take a closer look at Wilson as we near the end of our player-by-player profiles of the 90-man roster the Giants will bring to training camp.

The basics

Height: 6-foot-2
Weight: 193
Age: 25 in August
Position: Cornerback
Experience: 4
Contract: One-year, $993,000 | Guaranteed: $3,000 | 2021 cap hit: $853,000

Career to date

Wilson played in 20 games, starting 10 over the course of his first two seasons with Indianapolis. He played more than 400 snaps in each of those two seasons — not full-time, but enough that he was a semi-regular part of the Colts’ defense.

That changed in 2019. He played only 122 total snaps in nine games (12 percent of the team’s defensive snaps). He did not start a game.

The Athletic’s Stephen Holder explored what happened to Wilson, writing that “The Colts, as the season progressed, found little use for Wilson.”

Here is what Wilson told Holder while he was still on the Colts’ roster:

“It was definitely frustrating,” Wilson said. “I felt like in my second year (2018), I was coming off a good year and I finally figured out some things and I had something to build on. I feel kind of like I got robbed of that (progress) this year, however it went down.

“But you just have to accept it and move forward. It’s tough and it’s frustrating, and I want it right now. But at the end of the day, I’m 23 years old and I know I have a hell of a lot of talent. I know that. As bad as it was this year, and whatever I was being told or this or that, it was a mess, for sure.

“But I know who I am and I’m not going to waver on that.”

The Colts traded Wilson to the New York Jets during the 2020 draft in exchange for a sixth-round pick.

Things did not get better for Wilson with Gang Green. Over a nine-week period, he was inactive in four games, did not play in two others and got on the field as a defensive player in only one game, getting 25 snaps Week 2 vs. the San Francisco 49ers.

The Jets waived him in November and the Giants added him to their practice squad.

2021 outlook

Wilson would seem to have a steep mountain to climb in his effort to stick with the Giants, especially with the Giants having added Adoree’ Jackson, Aaron Robinson, Joshua Kalu and Chris Milton to their cornerback group.

The Colts and Jets, obviously, did not like what they saw from Wilson. Could things change with the Giants?