Giants' Brian Burns excited to finally 'let loose,' but will his offense let him?
Brian Burns looks on during Giants training camp at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center in East Rutherford, N.J., on July 28. Credit: Ed Murray
Brian Burns was asked this past week what aspect of his new life here in the New York City area has taken the most getting used to.
“The traffic,” he said almost immediately. “And, um, well . . . the traffic.”
There is no second item on that list.
The Giants edge rusher told the story of how he recently tried to drive into Manhattan, missed his turn coming out of the Lincoln Tunnel, somehow got spun around and wound up being forced to go back through the tunnel to Jersey, where he then turned around — this time on purpose — and tried the whole thing again.
All told, it took close to an hour to go the 1 1⁄2 miles or so that the tunnel actually spans.
“That was some bull,” he grumbled. “I was stuck. I had some words for myself. It’s one of those feelings that you can’t blame anybody but yourself. I take my time now.”
Moving here after playing the first five years of his career in sleepy Charlotte for the Panthers and at Florida State before that has been quite the adjustment. But he’s pretty much settled into a new house and gotten used to a new working environment. Wait until he sees all those tax acronyms pulling at his game checks in a few weeks, not to mention that E-ZPass bill for the extra laps under the Hudson River he’s been making.
There is one big change that he is really looking forward to, though, and that’s being on a team that can score. See, they may have brought Burns here through the trade and a new $141 million contract to help the Giants, but it could be the Giants who help Burns even more.
Consider this wild stat, then read it a second time and let it sink in:
Burns did not play a single defensive snap in the fourth quarter with his team holding a lead last season.
All those times when other teams’ pass rushers talk about “pinning our ears back” and playing with the abandon that comes from knowing the other guys are in clear passing situations because time is running out and they need to score? Burns never had that once. His team won two games last season, both on last-second field goals.
And he still managed to record eight sacks.
“The times that we did have a lead in Carolina, it was fun,” he said.
That just didn’t occur a whole lot.
“When you are playing from behind and it’s a 50-50 [run or pass] game, you can’t let loose,” Burns said. “You can’t set up your tackle. You just have to play it honest. That makes you a little more conservative.”
Asked if he felt he had done very little “letting loose” in his career, Burns said: “Wholistically? Yeah. Just because the team’s success wasn’t very high.”
During his tenure with the Panthers, they went 24-59. In those five years, he still managed to record 46 sacks.
“But that’s all behind me now,” Burns said. “I’m looking forward to [rushing with a lead] here. Every pass rusher wants that dream.”
Burns already knew about that fourth-quarter stat. Many of his teammates did not, and they were shocked when told.
“Are you serious? That’s crazy,” defensive lineman Rakeem Nunez-Roches said. “I could not even imagine that. That reminds me of some of the things I had to go through at Southern Miss. But I commend him. To have the motor like that and the will to push through that is awesome. It’s kind of the reason why I see what I see every day.”
Maybe, too, the reason he didn’t just give up and go home when he went through the Lincoln Tunnel twice. Burns’ introduction to the Giants this preseason could not have gone any better. It’s certainly been smoother than his navigation skills.
“I wouldn’t even say he fits in; he stands out,” Nunez-Roches said. “He’s our guy. Burns does everything right. He’s electric . . . I wanted to see what he was all about and I ain’t gonna lie, the brother is everything and the icing on the cake.”
Nunez-Roches talked about how Burns’ presence will reduce the number of double-teams and amount of attention offenses give to blocking Dexter Lawrence and Kayvon Thibodeaux, and how Burns will be able to make the secondary better by forcing the ball out of the quarterback’s hand quickly.
“It opens everything up,” Nunez-Roches said.
That won’t happen unless the Giants’ offense can allow Burns to open up himself. To do that, they’ll have to score points and put the Giants’ defense in positions to truly attack. They need each other. And there is no guarantee that this Giants offense will be much better than the Panthers’ last year.
Burns may find himself stuck in yet another helix, this one a football roundabout.
But there have been enough signs during the summer to have Burns optimistic, such as the many deep passes Daniel Jones has flung to Malik Nabers, Jalin Hyatt, Darius Slayton and others in training camp.
“It’s like a bittersweet feeling,” Burns said of seeing those plays. “It’s good work for our [defensive] guys and I would like to see them break those up, but I also am kind of happy to see them have those explosive plays. Now I know what to look for in the regular season.”
If those kinds of plays happen on, say, Sept. 8 against the Vikings?
“It’ll be all sweet,” Burns said. “I’ll be happy as hell.”
And he’ll know that even though it took some very costly and frustrating wrong turns, he’s finally reached his destination.
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.
