Latest On Giants OLB Oshane Ximines

Typically, a regime change is not good news for a struggling former draft choice, as a team’s new power brokers do not necessarily have the same attachment to that player as their predecessors. But as Ryan Dunleavy of the New York Post writes, Giants OLB Oshane Ximines is an exception to that rule.

Under former head coach Joe Judge and defensive coordinator Patrick Graham, Ximines was used in a rotational role for the first seven games of the 2021 season, averaging roughly 23 snaps per game. In a Week 8 matchup against the Chiefs, Ximines’ offsides penalty negated a fourth quarter interception that may have cost the Giants the game, and in the final nine games of the season, Ximines was a healthy scratch six times and played just one defensive snap.

In Dunleavy’s opinion, Ximines — the first Old Dominion player to ever be selected in the NFL draft — would have been cut if New York had elected to retain Judge. Of course, the team fired Judge, Graham left to take the defensive coordinator post with the Raiders, and the new Big Blue HC/DC tandem of Brian Daboll and Don “Wink” Martindale is prepared to give Ximines a clean slate.

“You want to try to do it your way, be true to yourself, give the guys opportunities to be themselves, let them either get with the program or not get with the program,” Daboll said. “Sometimes it’s hard as a coach not to have any preconceived notions about players, staff, whoever it may be, because it’s such a small group. But I think everybody should be afforded that opportunity.”

This will actually be the second staff overhaul that Ximines has weathered. He was drafted in the third round in 2019, when Pat Shurmur was head coach and James Bettcher was operating as defensive coordinator, and in his rookie campaign, he showed a fair amount of promise. In 16 games (two starts) in 2019, he posted 4.5 sacks and 25 pressures. He started three of the first four games of the 2020 season — the first year of the…