Tat’s the spirit!
Giant’s new ink shows NY pride
GIANTS first-round pick Evan Engram has made New York a permanent part of him. Now he can’t wait to represent the city on the field.
Engram on Wednesday showed the Daily News a new tattoo on his right forearm of the Freedom Tower, One World Trade Center, one of the signature skyscrapers lining the skyline across the river from his apartment in Weehawken, N.J. It is a reminder of how far the tight end has come and whom he represents.
“I visited New York a couple of summers ago and went to the World Trade Center, the memorial, the Freedom Tower, and it was mind-blowing,” Engram, 22, told the Daily News while packing meals for the hungry at Newark Airport in an event organized by United Airlines and Rise Against Hunger. “So I wanted to get the tattoo to represent my new journey, my new start. This is where my dreams came true.”
Engram, meanwhile, has been spending most of his time with his new neighbor, rookie Giants quarterback Davis Webb, who lives in an apartment building so close to Engram’s that, according to Webb: “I can see in his living room through my window, and he can see my balcony.”
In fact, Webb said he and Engram have been hanging out every day since the end of minicamp in mid-June, working out and throwing together on local fields, frequently at Weehawken High School, as they eye a July 27 report date for their first NFL training camp.
The only respite from their work was the week of July 4, when families were in town and Webb was driving around buying furniture and moving into his new place.
“We throw most of the days, lift four to five times a week,” Webb said. “We try to find different turfs (to work on). So we’ve hung out every day, thrown a bunch, and I think I’ve gotten better taking in how much I did learn during OTAs and minicamp. I’m trying to retain as much as I can.”
Webb said the NFL’s rules against receiving film from teams during this part of the offseason make studying more challenging, but he has stayed studious anyway thanks to “five booklets of notes” he took during OTAs and minicamp. “I’m a notepad kind of guy, yellow notepad,” Webb said. “I’m old school.”
Sometimes he’ll even quiz himself while he’s driving, anything to make sure he focuses on football for an extended period of time each day. “It’s not like I’m sitting there in an office all day,” he laughed.
Webb, 22, the Giants’ third-round pick out of Cal, said he does miss the summer workouts he and his teammates would do together in college.
“Right now it’s just me and Evan together, and that’s fun, but I really enjoyed that part of college, 30 to 40 guys out there running 27 gassers, and you’re dying together,” he said with a smile.
Wednesday’s event at Newark Airport brought Engram, Webb and Giants veterans Zak DeOssie, Kerry Wynn and Jay Bromley together with United Airlines employees to pack 20,000 meals headed to Haiti through Rise Against Hunger, which provides food and aid to vulnerable communities.