David Wilson has Giants encouraged, excited

Kevin Gilbride was also asked about his first-round pick, David Wilson, who showed some nice flashes in the two practices today.

“He looks very fast (on film), but to see it on the field it was … encouraging, exciting, both of those things seem to come to mind. It looks like if he’s got a hole he’ll hit it and do some damage.”

One of the problems he could encounter is not knowing when to do that. A few times, particularly earlier in the morning workout, Wilson cut back to try to turn a busted play into a big gain. In minicamp shells, it’s hard to tell exactly what he could have done with those plays. But Gilbride said he wasn’t happy to see the improvisation.

“The defensive end jumped upfield and he tried to bounce it outside, realized he couldn’t, and I said ‘No, no. Put your foot in the ground and go north-south,’” Gilrbide said. “That may be an example of a guy who wants to try too hard to make a favorable impression, trying to make something out of nothing and he winds up making a bad play into a worse one.”

Other than that, Wilson was impressive. He also seemed to show some of that fun-loving personality we heard about when he was drafted. After one run today he made a spin move against no one and then hit the ground and crawled for several yards. After another long run (in which he of course beat the defenders to the end zone) he skipped around and jumped over one of the orange cones.

Gilbride said he didn’t see those displays. What he did see, though, he liked.

“He’s not a big guy so you would think he’s a finesse guy … but he’s a very determined runner, a guy who looks like he looks for every yard, fights for every yard, probably breaks a few more tackles than you would think he’d be capable of just looking at him,” Gilbride said (saying things that sound an awful lot like Ahmad Bradshaw!). “And then he combines that with phenomenal speed. Now whether or not he can do that up at this next level remains to be seen. But no question now it looks like if there’s a hole he’s going to get through it and give you a chance to make some big plays. What you have to see is the wiggle and make some guys miss. We’ll see that as we go.”

So Gilbride has two offensive weapons who seem ready to contribute plus Adrien Robinson in development at tight end. That’s a pretty good draft for an offensive coordinator.

“It’s definitely needed,” he said. “We lost a lot of guys. We lost five starters the year before on offense, you lose a couple of other guys, you certainly need to start to replenish the troops.”