Sterling Shepard has seen it all over seven seasons with the Giants, but his eyes kept darting back to the Super Bowl championship banners when he looked around the fieldhouse.
“We have to work our way to get back to a playoff team, but that’s not ultimately the goal for us. Our ultimate goal is to put a banner up here,” Shepard said Sunday, after practicing for the first time during training camp. “It was great making the [2022] playoffs. It’s been a while … but last year was a wash for us and we’re a completely different team. I’m looking forward to what we’ve got.”
The words of the longest-tenured Giant hit with force in the Brian Daboll-created sea of one-day-at-a-time clichés.
The Giants made the playoffs during Shepard’s rookie season in 2016 and generated preseason Super Bowl buzz in 2017 — only to have that season implode and mark the start of the losingest five-year stretch in the NFL.
Daboll’s arrival last season as the fourth head coach during that tumultuous span sparked a return to the playoffs, and now he is preaching bigger dreams behind closed doors than he cares to publicly admit.
“He tells us that every day,” Shepard said. “Exactly what I just told you is what he tells us. Everybody knows that, and that’s the reason why we play this game. It’s pretty clear.”
Shepard missed the two playoff games — and the final 14 regular-season games — last season while rehabbing a torn ACL.
It was his second straight season-ending injury (torn Achilles in 2021) and the fourth straight season in which he missed at least four games due to injuries.
On the long road to recovery, Sunday was a significant step.
Shepard was cleared by doctors and activated from the Physically Unable to Perform List.
“I’ve been sitting over there for months, running routes by myself and just trying to visualize going against somebody,” Shepard said. “To actually have somebody, it honestly was 10 times better. I wasn’t even thinking about my planting [leg] or anything like that. I felt great.”
In a way, Shepard has been here — using training camp to recover from injury — before.
Too frequently for his liking.
“I’m going to go about it a little different,” he said. “I’ve got to be smarter in what I allow myself to do and not really push back, because I’m one of those guys that likes to keep going and going and going. I know that I’ve got to take my time this time. I get antsy a lot — I want to get in three reps in a row. I may have to take one rep, take a rep off. I just think I’ve got to hold myself back sometimes.”
In another way, Shepard has never been here before. For the first time, he is fighting for a spot in a deepened receivers corps with zero guarantees on his one-year, $1.3 million contract.
“I control what I can control and that’s staying on the field — and when I’m on the field, doing something [productive],” Shepard said. “I don’t worry about other stuff. I don’t worry about how it’s going to shake out. I just worry about where my feet are right now. What can I do to get better?”
A healthy Shepard is arguably quarterback Daniel Jones’ most-trusted target.
They have connected 150 times for 1,498 yards and nine touchdowns in 26 games, and Shepard added hard-to-quantify values of sideline energy and experience to last season’s playoff push.
“Just kind of bring him along,” Daboll said of the plan for integrating Shepard. “He has done a good job in the rehab process.”
Shepard’s experience playing on the perimeter when he was teammates with Golden Tate (2019-20) means that he isn’t slot reliant — a benefit when those snaps could be redirected to Cole Beasley, Jamison Crowder, Jalin Hyatt and Wan’Dale Robinson.
“It’s great knowing that I can win [my matchup] outside,” Shepard said. “You want to be able to have that versatility. It’s the easiest way on the field and you know those guys [Crowder and Beasley] work magic in there. We’ve got a lot of playmakers that could flat out go.”
Shepard’s mind says he will be the one helping the Giants go far. But his body needs to listen.
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