Carter insists he can be ‘dominant’ rusher Big Blue needs
Lorenzo Carter is ready to show the NFL that he is the superstar pass rusher the Giants need. “That’s what I came here for,” Carter told the Daily News on Thursday. “I didn’t come here to be less than a superstar on the edge.”
GM Dave Gettleman controversially passed on Kentucky edge rusher Josh Allen with the No. 6 overall pick when he drafted quarterback Daniel Jones.
Gettleman also traded Olivier Vernon to Cleveland, didn’t pick an edge player until Old Dominion’s Oshane Ximines in round three, and otherwise
only added veteran edge Markus Golden on a one-year flier as he recovers from a 2017 right ACL tear.
By doing so, Gettleman showed strong belief in Carter to blossom.
The 23yeard-old, sec- ond-year pro appreciated the vote of confidence, too, but he said that’s not what drives him. He is already motivated, plain and simple, to be dominant. To change and win games for Big Blue.
“I don’t really think too much about what they want. It’s about what I want,” Carter said with his chest out before the first full-team practice of training camp. “I want to be the guy.”
Starring on the edge for Lawrence Taylor’s former franchise is no small aspiration, but Carter, a 2018 third-round pick out of Georgia, walked the talk this offseason.
He is noticeably stronger, especially in his upper-body and chest, after working out this offseason at Ultimate 48 Fitness in Lawrenceville, Ga., with trainer Manny Rodriguez.
Carter weighed in at 6foot-5, 255 pounds coming in for camp on Wednesday, which means he lost seven pounds from his weight at the end of last season. But he is thicker and said that’s because he added “at least 10 pounds of muscle.”
In Thursday’s first camp practice, Carter made an immediate impact.
He flashed crazy speed by running across the field with wideout Golden Tate on a reverse, and then he dove and intercepted an Eli Manning screen pass for Saquon Barkley and took it to the house.
“That was a heck of a play,” Barkley said. “You have to give credit to Zo. . . I’m really happy for that guy, you can see the work he put in. I think he is going to have a tremendous impact for us this year.”
As a rookie, Carter was a part-time contributor in a rotation as Giants defensive coordinator James Bettcher gradually put more and more on his plate.
He is an elite athlete, though, and a former five-star basketball recruit who was recruited heavily by the likes of Florida State, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and several mid-majors. And that
showed in Carter’s 43 tackles, four sacks, four passes defended and 10 quarterback hits.
Carter is excited to combine his offseason work and put all that experience and commitment together into a season to remember.
“I think last year really prepared me, not throwing me all the way in the fire but giving me chances to see what I needed to work on to be a fulltime guy like I plan on being,” Carter said. “So this year it’s like, I put in the work in the offseason, and now it’s time to play football.”
Carter said he doesn’t pay attention to the people who say the Giants should have drafted Kentucky’s Allen in the first round. He trusts and appreciates Gettleman’s support of him, and he is excited to prove him right.
“I think it’s funny. Everybody’s a GM. Everybody wants to be a GM, but nobody wants to get fired,” Carter laughed, discussing the naysayers. “So it’s cool. But Mr. Gettleman knows what we have on this team and in the locker room, and I feel like he did make that decision and he trusted me with it on the edge, and I’ve just got to go out there and perform.”