Giants look to Barden to fill void left by Hixon

The sad but sudden truth about the Domenik Hixon injury is that every receiver below him on the depth chart moves up a notch. That includes Ramses Barden, who has been a bit of en enigma for both Giants fans and coaches.

But that was the last thing that Barden was thinking about when Hixon went down on Tuesday afternoon.

"He's probably one of my closest friends on the team, so when I heard about [the diagnosis] I was particularly hurt," Barden said. "I was on the field when it happened, and that was my first thought when he went down. 'Man, that's my guy. That's my roll dog.'"

But when the Giants return to work in Albany on Aug. 1, they'll need someone to help fill the void left by Hixon. And in Kevin Gilbride's mind, a majority of that vacuum will be filled by Barden.

"I feel encouraged that I see a guy who is trying really, really hard and I see some skills that would help us substantially," Gilbride said. "I'm betting on him."

Still, Gilbride didn't sound all that flowery when talking about Barden's progress so far. He said he'd like to see the second-year receiver be able to translate his skills to consistent work on the field. He cited a pass in Wednesday's practice when Rhett Bomar threw to him and Barden jumped but did not make the catch.

"He reached up to jump, all he had to do was run and it would have hit him," Gilbride said. "It was a great throw. He stopped to make a spectacular catch. If he just kept running it would have been right in his hands."

"This spring you see those little glimpses that you get encouragement and you fell like 'Alright, it's there. Now can we get it out of you on a consistent basis?' " Gilbride said. "'Can you take advantage of the fact that you're 6-5, 6-6, whatever your size is, and reach over somebody and make some of those catches that we think you are capable of making?' You see it once in a while, you don't see it enough."

That might sound harsh for a guy who came out of Cal Poly and whom the Giants envisioned as a "project" when they drafted him last spring. No one expected Barden to come in and contribute right away. There were hopes that he would offer more than he did in 2009, but everyone figured he was a few years away from being a polished NFL receiver.

"You're just hopeful to see something maybe at an earlier time than we did," Gilbride said. "I guess because I see a very intelligent guy that I hope would assimilate what we do at a fairly quick pace, therefore you like to see it manifest itself maybe a little more rapidly. Maybe I'm being unfair in that because I'm so hopeful because I can see some things that would fill some voids that we have offensively. But you have to go do it."

It sounds like Barden certainly wants to.

"I don't know how it's going to play out, but I imagine they'll need guys to fill some additional roles and I'm more than willing to fill those roles when needed," Barden said of adjusting to Hixon's absence. "Anything Domenik brought to the table I'm going to work to incorporate into my repertoire and hopefully I can continue to help the team."

Or, as Gilbride might say, start to help the team.