Perhaps Notre Dame's Howard Cross III will find his way to his father's team, the Giants, after the NFL Scouting Combine

INDIANAPOLIS — The defensive lineman from Notre Dame laughed when asked if he’d met with the Giants at the NFL Combine. He had, but the formality of that interview wasn’t really necessary.

“I’m pretty sure the Giants know everything they need to know about me,” he said.

That’s because Howard Cross III, son and namesake of the former Giants tight end and current team broadcaster, has been around the team his whole life. He’s family. And while he won’t be a flashy first-round pick in April’s NFL Draft and may have to wait until the third day to hear his name called, Cross could follow his father’s footsteps to East Rutherford.

“I mean, obviously I’ll be absolutely blessed to get any opportunity, but you know, it’s just like a legacy thing,” Cross said.

He’s even allowed himself to imagine not just playing for his dad’s old team but having him on the sideline doing the radio broadcasts.

“I would definitely be cracking jokes and stuff like that,” the younger Cross said. “If I ever got a chance I think it would be really cool.”

Cross isn’t the only scion of a former Giant on the Notre Dame defense who could return home in that way.

His teammate is linebacker RJ Oben, son of former offensive lineman Roman Oben. Oben was not at the Combine but had a good showing at the Senior Bowl.

“We have that bond,” Cross said of their lineages.

The two have more than just their names to carry them into the NFL.

Lance Zierlein of NFL.com described Cross’ game tape from Notre Dame, particularly in 2023, as disruptive enough to attract attention from those scouting him and called him “a nuisance when allowed to stunt or slant” who “might be a fun sub-rush piece” for a pro team.

Oben, who played five seasons for Duke before transferring to Notre Dame for 2024, was on the American team at the Senior Bowl, so Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka had to coach against him in that game.

Ryan Fowler of TheDraftNetwork.com said Oben “touts many of the traits teams look for in a piece along their defensive front” and is “a highly intelligent young man whose work ethic has come up multiple times in conversations with teams; fine-tuning the small details in his game should allow Oben to become a contributor on Sundays.”

Cross said he attended only one game in which his father played, and that was when he was a baby, so he doesn’t remember it. But he did grow up with Eli Manning and Victor Cruz as his “idols” and remembers rooting for them through their Super Bowl seasons.

“I couldn’t be in a Giants household and start rooting for the Eagles,” he said. “If I said J-E-T-S, I would have gotten kicked out. But it’s also Jersey. Jersey is a small area. It’s either the blue or the green, so I was in a blue area, solidly Giants stuff everywhere you go. I was indoctrinated with the Giants.”

Cross described himself as a “nerd” who is into comic books, anime and Legos but happens to excel at football, too. At just 6-1 and 285 pounds, he said scouts often see him and ask, “Who is the short dude?”

“Obviously, I am not going to have the same game as Dexter Lawrence or someone like that,” he said of the Giants’ All-Pro nose tackle. “I have a different thing going on. It’s speed and versatility and skill, that’s kind of my thing.”

He could, though, see himself playing alongside Lawrence.

“I look at it like Superman and Batman,” Cross said. “Batman doesn’t have a lot of powers, he doesn’t do a lot of stuff, but he knows how to get around people. I’m a film guru. I sit down and I’ll watch film for an extremely long period of time, maybe even longer than I should, but I look and read and do everything I can to make sure I do everything I can to beat you.

“Obviously, Dexter Lawrence is probably one of the strongest people in the league, so I think I would complement that well.”

Perhaps the Giants think so too.

Cross said he never had big football aspirations.

“To be honest, I am just as surprised to be up here as some people who see me up here,” he said of his position at the Combine.

He remembers getting to St. Joseph’s in New Jersey as a freshman, looking at the football team and thinking, “These guys are crazy.”

He thought it would be cool just to get on the field.

“Then I got on the field and I was like, ‘Oh, it’d be so cool to start,’ ” he said. “I started and thought it’d be so cool to get an offer. I went to college and I was like it’d be so cool to even touch the field here. It just kept building.

“Now the mindset is kind of different. I know I can compete with anybody.”

And anywhere.

Maybe even right at home for the only team that knows him as well as he knows them.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

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.