John Harbaugh is now the head coach of the New York Giants after 18 seasons with the Baltimore Ravens. Harbaugh wasn’t the only one making a switch to the Big Apple from Baltimore. He has been joined by tight end Isaiah Likely, who he feels will thrive with the Giants, even though two-time MVP Lamar Jackson won’t be the one throwing him passes anymore, per Pro Football Talk.
“I’m certain he’s going to be able to put up the numbers, the stats,” Harbaugh said of Likely, who never posted more than 500 yards in a single season with the Ravens. “That wasn’t the thing in Baltimore because of the supporting cast.”
Harbaugh has seen Likely up close, and feels he’s poised for a breakout year.
“I’ve seen him every day in practice,” Harbaugh said. “I’ve seen him make plays. I know how he plays the game. So, you try to kind of create a vision for a player. What do you think they’re capable of doing? And one thing that we always have tried to do is see what players can do.
“Not so much concerned about what they don’t do, what they haven’t done, what they can’t do. What can they do? And when you see a player do it every day, you got a pretty good idea what he’s capable of.”
The veteran coach thinks Likely’s playmaking is well-suited to help young quarterback Jaxson Dart.
“He’s a playmaking football player,” Harbaugh said of Likely. “He’s going to make plays for us. I think Jaxson’s going to really like him running the routes and being in his line of vision. He’s got a big catch radius. He can he can make plays, after he makes the catch he can get up field. He can make people miss. He can run people over. He’s a very good perimeter blocker. You’ll see that. That’ll be good for our run game. So, all those things he brings to the table.”
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.