When the year-end NFL Honors are announced, New York Giants receiver Richie James, currently authoring a personal comeback story from adversity, probably won't even be nominated for consideration.
That’s fine with James, who is quietly navigating his way back from a season-ending knee injury suffered last year while with the 49ers that led the team to give up on its 2018 seventh-round draft pick.
In the beginning, James looked like he was one heck of a value pick. He appeared in 13 games as a rookie, catching nine of 14 pass targets for 130 yards, a 14.4 average, with one touchdown.
But it was as a punt returner where James earned his money. In that first season, he returned 12 punts for 75 yards and had 23 kickoff returns for 580 yards and a touchdown.
By his third season, adversity started to toy with James, only to be met by his steel resolve to overcome challenges. He fought off a bout with COVID-19 and a hamstring injury that landed him on injured reserve, returning to the roster in October 2020. In his Week 9 debut, he caught nine of 13 pass targets for 184 yards and a touchdown and would finish with 23 receptions out of 35 pass targets for 394 yards and the one score in 11 games.
In 2021, James faced his biggest challenge when he suffered a season-ending knee injury in the preseason that landed him on injured reserve.
“That was tough,” James told Giants Country this week in the locker room. “But life is tough, so you just gotta roll with what it gives you.”
The 49ers chose not to re-sign James after his contract expired. Now faced with finding a new home, James said he mostly got the same question from every team that expressed an interest in his services.
“Can he still play?” James recalled with a smile.
The answer, at least as far as James was concerned, was a resounding “Yes!
“Shoot, just going through that training, pull myself through the hurt and the mental part of it, and preparing myself,” James said when asked how he knew he could affirmatively answer the questions of whether he could still play.
“I had people around me that I trust and who believed in me, and who were telling me to go out there and be the best I can be. So all that helped motivate me in working back from that injury.”
James signed with the Giants, looking to get a fresh start with a new coaching staff trying to put its first roster together. Recognizing that the majority of his teammates at his position were starting from square one regarding the playbook, James went to work.
Before too long, James was getting such a good grasp of what the coaches were teaching in the classroom that he soon found he had earned first-team reps while Kenny Golladay, Kadarius Toney, and Sterling Shepard were sidelined with physical ailments.
But that wasn’t just a temporary thing for James. When training camp rolled around, and Golladay and Toney were cleared to practice, James still found himself being worked in with the first-string offense, earning the praise of the coaching staff for his attention to detail and his grasp of the playbook.
Fast forward to Week 1 of the 2022 regular season. With Golladay, Toney, and Shepard all active for the Giants’ regular-season opener at Tennessee, James received 42 snaps or 70 percent of the offensive snaps, third most behind Shepard and Golladay, and not as strictly a decoy either. James finished the day with five receptions on six targets for 59 yards, both totals second among the Giants’ receiving targets last week.
But as impressive as that might have been for a guy that at the start of training camp many people probably didn’t have making the Giants’ 53-man roster, James shone brightly on punt returns, averaging an eye-popping 12.4 yards per return.
“Richie did a great job,” said special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey. “He did a good job of fielding the ball and making some plays in space.
“He is a natural back there. He did a good job of fielding the ball and then making people miss in space. When he hit it, he hit it. That’s the thing we have to have: The returner getting hard, straight, vertical as far as getting the ball up the field.”
James, who will get another opportunity this week against the Carolina Panthers to continue his personal comeback story—the Giants will be without rookie Wan'Dale Robinson (knee) and could be without Toney (hamstring)—credits veteran quarterback Tyrod Taylor for helping to keep him even-keeled and locked in on making the most of this opportunity.
”Just from just listening to Tyrod, the dude's been through everything in his career, and I’m like, ‘How do you stay in this so long?’ He’s like, ‘Man, just understand, bro. You gonna have good times and bad times, but as long as you stay the course and just work on yourself and believe in yourself, you’re good.”
James was indeed good in Week 1, but he believes he can be even better in Week 2 and beyond.
“I think I'm still working through mental and physical things that once I get down, I can be even way better,” he said with a smile.
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