Former Stony Brook cornerback Gavin Heslop among Giants' roster cuts
Gavin Heslop participates in a drill during Giants training camp at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center in East Rutherford, N.J., on Thursday, July 28, 2022. Credit: Brad Penner
Stony Brook’s latest shot at putting a player on the Giants’ regular-season roster ended Tuesday when the team waived cornerback and former Seawolf Gavin Heslop. He had been seeing reps with the third-string defense and had made several plays, but the combination of the reduction in roster size from 90 to 85 as of Tuesday and the addition of cornerback Olaijah Griffin off waivers from the Bills put him on the wrong side of a numbers crunch.
Heslop spent the previous two seasons with the Seahawks and appeared in three regular-season games last year. In December he saw his first action on defense and fractured his fibula and tibia several snaps into that debut. He underwent surgery, rehabbed, and was signed to the Giants’ roster just before the start of training camp in late July.
The Giants also waived TE/FB Jeremiah Hall and WR Austin Proehl was waived/injured to get to the 85-man limit.
These were among the first cuts for Brian Daboll as a head coach. He did not go into his specific message but said he tries to show “empathy” when having the difficult conversation with players the team is letting go. With rosters being trimmed to 53 by the end of the month there will be plenty more such meetings.
“It’s the nature of the business we’re in,” he said. “I’ve been on the other side of that too and it’s not any fun. These guys care about what they are doing and give you everything they have. You try to be as positive as you can be giving them news that they don’t want to hear.”
Notes & quotes: After two days in full pads the Giants had an easy workout on Tuesday. The players appreciated that schedule from Daboll. “That’s all you can ask for from a coach,” WR Kenny Golladay said. “You give him two hard days and he comes back and returns the favor.” . . . WR Kadarius Toney participated in individual drills at full speed but was held out of team drills while recovering from what appears to be a leg injury suffered last week . . . The Giants are one of the handful of teams that are not participating in extended joint practices with other squads this preseason (they’ll have one joint practice with the Jets next Thursday). Daboll said he thought it was better for the Giants to skip such workouts in his first year as head coach. “We wanted to make sure we got all our installations right and doing the things we need to do,” he said.
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.
