Gary Brightwell living up to 'special' comparison for Giants

LOS ANGELES — Gary Brightwell wants to be a special teams coach someday.

In the meantime, he is becoming a pretty good special teams player for the Giants.

"We haven’t seen a guy cover kicks like him since Ahmad Bradshaw," special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey gushed of the sixth-round pick, whose eight special teams tackles are tied for the team lead and third-most among rookies in the NFL this season. "He’s a different animal that way."

Playing a very different position from what many might have expected from him, too.

At the University of Arizona — where the Giants spent this past week practicing for Sunday’s game against the Chargers in Los Angeles — Brightwell was a running back. A fairly decent one, averaging 5.3 yards per carry and scoring nine touchdowns.

Those weren’t the stats that led the Giants to select him in the draft in April, though. It was his tenacity on kick returns, which made them think he might be able to add something to their coverage units.

It was Tom Quinn — the Giants’ special teams assistant and a former Arizona player himself — who first spotted that trait in Brightwell. He brought a few clips of him charging down the field under the football to McGaughey and coach Joe Judge early one Saturday morning while the staff was going through their pre-dawn pre-draft meetings.

"This dude was flying down the field," Judge recalled. "It was early enough that it woke you up and you really got excited about watching him. He’s a guy that jumps out from his skill set."

Brightwell came to Arizona as a slot receiver and moved to running back his sophomore year. He has found a way to combine the quick and elusive route-running skills of his first position with the power and speed of his second to forge a third: Core special teamer for the Giants.

Judge, who coached some of the top special teams players of all time when he was with the Patriots, including Matthew Slater, Brandon Bolden and Nate Ebner, saw that kind of potential in Brightwell.

He has begun to fulfill that promise — maybe more than any of the other players the Giants drafted last spring.

"He’s really demonstrated that what we thought he could be, he will be," Judge said.

"He’s not your typical rookie," McGaughey added. "He has a special skill set. When you watch him cover kicks, he’s hard to block one-on-one. It’s a hard, hard win against Gary Brightwell, and that’s unusual for rookies."

Like many special teamers, Brightwell has been toiling in the shadows of plays that often are afterthoughts to those who watch the sport. This past week in Tucson, though, Brightwell was given a chance to step into a bigger spotlight.

He was basically the team’s unofficial ambassador for the trip, telling teammates where to go in town for everything from a good meal to a decent haircut (his guy Glenn down the street from the campus was the spot for "getting chopped up," he said).

"This is like my second home, so just being back, smelling that cold desert air, it’s good," he said. "It feels good to be back."

And to come back as an NFL player to practice on the fields where he worked for four seasons makes it even more special. He had a chance to mingle with some of his former college teammates still on the team at Arizona and reflect on what he has learned since he left campus for the Giants.

"I can honestly say it’s way different than college," he said of the pro level. "You know you’ve got to bring it every day. I’m thinking I’m coming into something like a cakewalk, but really it was nothing like that."

A cakewalk?

"Any player that gets drafted, they’re going to think, ‘Yeah, I’ve got a spot,’ " he said. "But it’s not that way. You’ve still got to work, day in and day out, because if you don’t, you’re gone the next day. I mean, probably the next minute, honestly."

As for that Bradshaw comparison . . .

"He’s not quite the monster that Ahmad was because Ahmad was just heavy-handed and so physical," McGaughey said. "But Gary is so savvy and just really, really slippery, and it’s hard to get your hands on him. He can play with power also. He’s developing nicely."

What he hasn’t done that Bradshaw was able to do is contribute on offense.

By around this time in his rookie season, Bradshaw was starting to become a focal point on an offense that eventually won a Super Bowl. Brightwell, by contrast, has played only 12 offensive snaps this season and just four since Week 1. He has one carry for 4 yards and one catch for 6.

None of which bugs Brightwell.

"I work on one thing at a time," he said. "I haven’t even been looking forward to carries yet."

He’s focused on the job he was brought here to perform.

And, perhaps, his next one as well. The one after his playing career is over.

Coach Brightwell.

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.