Giants receiver Sterling Shepard makes final cut after returning from back-to-back season-ending injuries

For Sterling Shepard, there is a tomorrow with the Giants.

Shepard, coming off two years of season-ending injuries, made the cut Tuesday afternoon. NFL teams had until 4 p.m. to reduce their rosters to 53 players.

The achievement was significant for obvious reasons.

“You just kind of wait,” he said while sitting at his locker, knowing he’d made the cut. “I try not to worry about stuff I can’t control. I’ve said that before, and that’s honestly the truth. It’s a lot easier when you give your worries to God, and that’s what I try to do in every aspect of my life.”

When he learned he’d made the roster, it was a meaningful moment for a player who came back, over the past two years, from a pair of season-ending injuries, a torn Achilles followed by a torn ACL.

On Tuesday at his locker, Shepard retraced the most important steps of his rehab with Newsday.

“My first day of practice I came back, I think it was [the fourth practice of camp] and it was the one-on-one period, the first live period I’d been in since I got injured,” Shepard said. “And I won my one-on-one rep.”

Shepard smiled.  

“From there, that moment gave me confidence that I could still do it and still play at the level I’ve been playing at [before the injuries],” he said. “Then [I] just started stacking, day by day, and I started moving better and gaining more confidence and the rest days [worked].”

Shepard said, in his earlier rehabs, he would balk at some of the recommendations of the training staff, including the idea of rest days.

Not this time. This time, Shepard said, he did everything the trainers asked.

“Honestly, we have the best training staff in the league, they [are concerned and are looking out for] my best interest,” he said. “I listened to those guys this time around, and it’s working out so far.”

In what already appears to be a close-knit locker room, Shepard was particularly happy to still call quarterback Daniel Jones and running back Saquon Barkley teammates.

“It’s a blessing every year to be on the field,” Shepard said. “Those guys are like my brothers. I’m very grateful to be here and to be sitting in this seat. Because they're a lot of other guys who wish they were sitting here [including] a lot of other guys who are our friends. You have no choice but to be thankful and grateful for it.”

In his eighth season, the 30-year-old Shepard is one of the more respected players in the Giants locker room.

Receiver Parris Campbell, a five-year veteran and former Colt who signed with the Giants in free agency, noted the Shepard effect on the rest of the receivers.

"He’s definitely a great leader for our room,” Campbell said. “One thing about him, he’s not afraid to say anything if he sees something on someone’s route. He’s locked in but he keeps it fun.”

Teammates know that Shepard takes pride in his role as the longest-tenured current Giant.

“Now that I’ve gotten to be with him and hang out with him, he’s a [heck] of a dude,” Campbell said. “And him going through what he’s gone through, he’s still like the life of the party. Bringing juice, always has a smile on his fact, he’s the life of the party. You wouldn’t even know. You’d never know.”

Shepard, of course knows.

On Aug. 21, Shepard told Newsday that he wanted the training camp competition at receiver “to be fair.”

“I want to earn my job," he said. "I don’t want to be handed a job in any way, shape or form. I know what I can do on the field. I feel like I can show what I can do.”

Shepard has earned his job. No doubt about it.

By Kimberly Jones

kimberly.jones@newsday.comkimjonessports

Kimberly Jones covers the Giants for Newsday, a beat she first worked in the early 2000s before joining the YES Network to cover the Yankees. She worked for the NFL Network for more than a decade and has been heard semi-regularly on WFAN.