Former Giant Evan Engram returns to MetLife Stadium to torment Jets
Jacksonville Jaguars tight end Evan Engram (17) stiff-arms Jets cornerback Sauce Gardner during the third quarter of Thursday night's game. Credit: AP/Seth Wenig
It probably didn’t mean much to the Jets to be facing Evan Engram on Thursday night. He never played for them. But it sure meant a whole lot to Engram to be back at MetLife Stadium, where he played five seasons for the Giants. The Jaguars tight end made the most of it, catching seven passes for 113 yards.
"I don't think I've ever had a 100-yard game [at MetLife]," Engram correctly said after the Jaguars' 19-3 victory. "This week was a challenge and the most challenging week fell on coming back here. Tonight, means everything.”
Engram’s previous career-high in receiving yards at MetLife Stadium was 87 yards, which came in his rookie season in 2017.
"He's a guy that can really do anything," Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence said of Engram. "He's a really good blocker, obviously has a lot of speed, so you can use him a lot of different ways on the perimeter in the passing game. You can move him from inside to outside, motion, you can just do so much with him and he adds that element and that stress on the defense of it's a tight end. You can't just put anybody on Evan, you have to really think about that match up and I think that adds some difficulty to teams that we play.”
The Jets had their best young cornerback, Sauce Garder, covering Engram at times on Thursday. Not even the Pro Bowl rookie could stop him. He was the only player in the game for either team with more than 44 receiving yards.
It must have been interesting for Engram to hear his old home stadium booing someone else for a change. He was often the target of the frustrated serenades when he was a Giant, an unfair scapegoat in their five straight losing seasons that coincided with his tenure in New York. On Thursday, that booing came for Jets quarterback Zach Wilson.
No one in Jacksonville is booing Engram now. In 15 games in Jacksonville, where he signed a one-year deal this offseason, Engram has 68 catches for 723 yards – both career highs – and four touchdowns. Thursday’s performance made him and Kansas City's Travis Kelce the only tight ends with multiple games of 110-plus receiving yards in 2022.
Engram also broke Kyle Brady's club record for receptions by a tight end (64 in 2000) and is seven yards shy of setting the yards mark Brady set in 2000 as well. In the past three games he has 26 catches for 337 yards and two touchdowns.
"He's gotten better with the offense learning the details that we teach," Jacksonville coach Doug Pederson said. "He's very unselfish. He works extremely hard in practice. He wants to be good. He loves being coached and it shows on the field.”
That Engram was able to show it on what used to be his home field, even if it wasn’t against his former team, made Thursday night special for him.
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.
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