Giants' Bobby Okereke has worked hard to adapt; will it pay off?
Giants linebacker Bobby Okereke talks with reporters after practice on Aug. 2 in East Rutherford, N.J. Credit: Ed Murray
Whenever Giants coaches talk about Bobby Okereke, the word “leadership” pops up very quickly. In his two-plus seasons with the team, the inside linebacker has established himself as one of the main defensive voices in the locker room and on the field. He wears the “green dot” helmet that gets the calls from defensive coordinator Shane Bowen and then makes sure the other 10 players with him know where to be and what to do.
“Bobby’s been a good leader for our football team since he’s been here,” coach Brian Daboll said last week. “He understands what we want to try to get accomplished, how we want to play, so he’s been good for us just like he has been the last few years.”
Okereke is a natural when it comes to that stuff.
“Even going back to college,” said new Giants cornerback Paulson Adebo, a teammate at Stanford. “He's always been a very smart player.”
Playing in this Giants defense, though? That wasn’t quite as good a fit last year.
After a 2023 season under coordinator Wink Martindale in which he recorded 149 tackles and teetered on Pro Bowl recognition (with many people believing he was snubbed for the honor), Okereke regressed in his production in his first year with Bowen in 2024. He recorded 93 tackles and had three forced fumbles with two fumble recoveries and two sacks. Not awful, but not what the Giants wanted or needed.
He also played with some injuries until a serious back issue with a herniated disc popped up in the Thanksgiving Day game in Dallas to end his season at 12 games. But even before that, he never looked or felt as comfortable in the new system as he hoped he would.
“I saw a player who wasn’t playing as decisive as he needs to be,” Okereke told Newsday of his observations after studying his own film in the offseason.
So Okereke went to work. On his body, on his playbook. He tried to redefine himself as a football player to fit the schemes and responsibilities that the Giants wanted him to assume.
His motto this offseason, he said, was: “Adapt or die.”
“When you change the rules of a game it’s a different game, so when you are in a different scheme and you have different responsibilities, you have to change the kind of decisions you make, the kind of reactions you make on the field,” Okereke said. “That’s the NFL. That’s this league.”
He began consulting with Richie Gray, one of the game’s premier “contact specialists,” who is a Scottish former rugby player and is generally credited with designing the Tush Push play the Eagles have used with so much success. Okereke worked with Gray’s GSI (Global Sports Innovation) Performance equipment to change the angles and techniques of his tackling to better preserve his back and become more efficient.
He also worked on his fascia, essentially the part of the body that keeps the muscles and joints moving, and did some ATG training. ATG technically stands for the Athletic Truth Group methodology, but most people accept the acronym as “[butt] to the ground” because of the deep squats that go into the exercises.
The result has been a much more physically comfortable, fluid Okereke this summer.
“Great, fantastic,” he said of his health.
As for the playbook, he turned to Bowen and position coach John Egorugwu and immersed himself in its intricacies.
“That’s what I am excited about with year two in this scheme,” Okereke said. “Understanding a lot more, understanding what is being asked of me, understanding how the guys around me are going to play, and ultimately understanding how I can affect the game . . . It’s night and day. Now I understand it like the back of my hand as opposed to when you are trying to put in the time on task and learn it.”
Will all of that pay off?
Possibly. That’s not guaranteed.
Okereke is penciled in as the starter and a returning two-time captain, but as the roster trims loom this coming week, he is far from the safest of players on the team. This is a team that unceremoniously cut ties with Blake Martinez just before he was about to begin the 2022 season as their starting inside linebacker. And the Giants are much deeper at the position now than they were back then, with Micah McFadden and Darius Muasau both getting some starting reps — and “green dot” experience — throughout the preseason.
“Three guys we feel pretty comfortable with,” Daboll said rather ominously.
“I'm not opposed at all to [Muasau] getting in there and playing some snaps for us defensively,” Bowen said.
The Giants also have rookie Abdul Carter, an edge rusher who can float back to play as an off-the-ball linebacker.
Okereke’s leadership qualities may be strong, but the Giants have others who can fill that void if necessary. Okereke could be squeezed out.
Then again, he could flourish.
“He's in the right spot a lot of the time, he really is,” Bowen said of Okereke. “He understands how teams are attacking us. He understands leverage. The length shows up, the ability to corral guys in some space with that length. I think his pass game defense has improved . . . That's always been a big attribute of his, and that's something we're expecting.”
Okereke got the message after last season, from his body and from his coaches.
He’s adapted.
We’ll see soon if it has allowed him to survive.
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.
