Jaguars' Evan Engram on facing Giants: 'This is weird'

The best part about the Giants’ somewhat modest but long-awaited winning ways of late, wide receiver Sterling Shepard said, is it gives the players who were around for the darkest times a chance to taste some positivity.

“That’s kind of what I wanted the past few years was for everybody to experience that,” Shepard, the longest continuously tenured Giant on the team and one of the only ones who has reached the postseason with the organization, told Newsday. “There’s no place like New York whenever you win. I’m just happy everybody gets to experience what is going on here now.”

Well, almost everybody.

While Shepard and Saquon Barkley and Daniel Jones and others get to enjoy this rare foray into success, the player who experienced those dismal days deeper than perhaps anyone — and in many ways came to personify it — does not.

Tight end Evan Engram was drafted in the first round in 2017 with the Giants coming off their most recent playoff appearance. He left as a free agent at the conclusion of last season just before this new wave of coaches, executives and optimism arrived. In between, he was with the team for five years and was part of only 16 victories in his 65 games played.

“He went through the brunt of it,” Shepard said. “It’s sad he never got to see the positive side of being around here and winning.”

Engram will at least get a glance at it Sunday when the Giants play the Jaguars, his new team, in Jacksonville. He signed a one-year deal in the offseason and will face his former teammates — many of whom remain his close friends — for the first time.

“This is weird,” Engram said of the dynamic. “Practicing with those guys, playing with those guys, this is going to be the first time [against them]. It’s just weird.”

He went on to say he is trying to focus solely on the opportunity to give the Jaguars a win over a quality opponent.

“They’re one of the best teams in the league right now,” he said of the Giants.

That must make it even weirder.

His Jaguars, a team that spent millions on high-priced talent in free agency and have a recent first overall draft pick at quarterback, are 2-4. Cue the sad trombone wah-wah-wah that seems to follow Engram.

Engram keeps in touch with many of the current Giants. In the last few weeks, he has had FaceTime chats with Barkley and Jones and has had several conversations with Shepard since he left.

“He’s doing good,” Shepard said. “He likes it from what he’s told me. Obviously, he misses us and we miss him. It’s good to see that his spirits are high. That’s what I always try to check on.”

Engram told reporters this past week that he is content with the move he made from the glaring spotlight of the Big Apple to the, well, considerably fewer watts that shine in northeast Florida.

“It was good for me just because I feel like I’m in a spot in my career where it’s time to lock in,” he said. “I’m about to get married and settle down and so this is a good spot to be focused and go win football games. That was kind of my outlook.

“I did love New York, I loved being there, it was a great city to play football in, but God has me here right now and I’m blessed to be here.”

For some, Engram became the scapegoat of the five years of failure his tenure with the Giants covered. He wasn’t embarrassingly unproductive — he did score 17 touchdowns, including six as a rookie — but he also had some misplays in critical moments that led to Giants losses. Drops, tipped balls that were picked off, they became more cliched than they needed to be.

“I think the media is the media,” Engram said of the way he was portrayed in New York. “They have more crazy people behind their posts and their stories versus anywhere else. If a guy is playing bad, no matter where, the media is going to tear him up. But up there, there are way more people involved who make it really good when you are playing well or really tough when you are playing bad.

“If you don’t have the right approach to it, you can take stuff personal,” he said. “But if you take it personal, that’s a distraction to what you are doing.”

Shepard called it “B.S.” that Engram was so vilified.

“It’s never going to be solely on one guy,” he said. “This is the ultimate team sport. We all could have done better in different situations throughout the years. To try to pin it on one guy is completely ridiculous to me. There are a lot of people out there who say things and they know nothing about being a pro athlete or even about football. You can’t listen to that.”

Engram has 24 catches for 208 yards with the Jaguars. Not awful, but not the kind of numbers his preseason connection with quarterback Trevor Lawrence seemed to portend. Giants fans have been there, of course.

He does provide his new team with some intangibles.

“Evan is, number one, a great person, that’s the first thing,” Jaguars coach Doug Pederson said. “Number two, he brought a lot of experience and a lot of depth that we needed at that position. His route-running ability and overall leadership are things that I’ve seen. Very unselfish player. He does whatever it takes to help us try to win football games and he’s been great in that way.”

Because he took the one-year deal with the Jaguars, he’ll be a free agent again this offseason, so it is important that he show the league he can play at a high level. He said a lot of that is out of his hands.

“I’m really growing as a professional football player here,” he said. “I’m learning so much. I love the relationships I am building in this locker room and the culture we are building here.”

Who knows? Maybe once his season in Jacksonville is over, he could come back and try to sip from New York’s chalice of glory that always eluded him.

Barkley noted that the door is always open for players like Engram to return.

“Any of the guys who were here before when things weren’t as good as they are now, you would love for those guys to come back,” Barkley said. “Seeing a guy like Landon [Collins] come back [on the practice squad]. Jaylon Smith who was here for a little bit last year came back. A guy like Odell [Beckham Jr.], obviously, in free agency. Those are guys you would love to see come back. You know that they were part of the process here when things were not good, but it wasn’t like we weren’t bought in or playing hard. You want to see all your friends and guys you root for succeed.”

That definitely includes Engram, whom many players still refer to as “my guy” or “my brother.”

“But hey, it is what it is,” Barkley said. “He’s in Jacksonville now and I’m happy for him.”

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.