John Harbaugh pours over hundreds of hours of college football tape every spring — more than most NFL head coaches — but Isaiah Likely’s highlights at Coastal Carolina stick in his brain.
“When he was being evaluated — he went in the late fourth round — nobody really could get their arms around him,” Harbaugh said. “He made all these plays in college, but it just looked different. In college, he also was crazy good as a perimeter blocker. He would launch guys through the air — like 5 yards through the air sometimes.”
Harbaugh and Likely are first-year Giants but fifth-year partners after four with the Ravens, where Likely was stuck behind Pro Bowler Mark Andrews on the depth chart.
The Ravens made their choice between them by re-signing Andrews to a three-year, $39.3 million extension last December — all but guaranteeing Likely’s free agent departure (three years, $40 million).
“Knowing that when teams focaled [Andrews] in as the guy, how did he attack every day differently?” Likely said. “Because it’s easier when your team is scheming you up wide-open looks, but when the defense is actually honing you in and knowing that, ‘We have to stop that guy, how do you take the next step to be in that type of schematic?’ And that was something that Mark taught me, whether it was watching film or at practice. And now I feel like once I got it, I was good with it.”
So far, so good, indeed.
With Harbaugh’s inside knowledge, were the Giants right in thinking that Likely was an elite tight end in hiding? Likely’s 33 catches rank No. 2 in the NFL among tight ends and are only nine shy of his single-season career high.
Five games into his tenure, Likely already is the first Giants veteran free agent addition with multiple games of two or more touchdown catches at any point in his contract since Plaxico Burress in 2005. All the other players to do so in between were acquired through the draft or undrafted rookie signings.
“[In] college, you’re put in situations usually in a system where if you’re the guy they … try to make you win [your route] as much as possible,” Likely said. “And when you get to the league, it’s more about disguising defenses and really just watching a lot of film.”
More credit to Andrews’ mentorship.
“Being able to incorporate that in my game to now where I’m seeing the field like a quarterback, where I can see spot drops and where I can just feel spaces,” Likely said. “And when you have a quarterback that sees the same way as you or talks about it the same way as you, that’s when it’s just night and day.”
Unlike teams that split their two best pass catchers on the perimeter, the Giants’ complement of Likely draws safety attention away from Malik Nabers. Likely has run a career-high 77.2 percent of his routes from the slot — only the Bengals’ Mike Gesicki is in the slot more among tight ends — where 195 of his 284 yards have come from, per NextGenStats.
“I told Leek since the day I got here, ‘My job is to make sure no team is able to double cover you,’ ” Likely said. “And I feel like it’s insulting if I see a team that would rather double-cover Leek and leave everybody one-on-one than having everybody else get their one. If I’m doing that, that means [Nabers is] going for 100-plus [yards] every game because there’s not a corner, I feel like, in the league that could just stay with him one-on-one all day.”
Tight ends coach Tim Kelly — a former NFL offensive coordinator — watched every play of Likely’s from the Ravens before free agency even though the head coach’s stamp of approval was already involved.
“You saw the stuff that you are seeing now — his ability to make plays, his ability to block in space and put his face on people in the run game,” Kelly told The Post. “That’s why he’s here. He was behind a great player, but it was intriguing to think, ‘What can he do with more opportunities? His ability to catch the ball away from the framework of his body and his body control, he’s got a lot of cool traits that show up consistently whether it’s a Wednesday or a Sunday.”
One thing that the Giants don’t like is calling him a “receiving tight end.”
“He’s not just a receiver,” Kelly said. “Are his blocks going to look similar to Theo Johnson’s or Chris Manhertz’s or Pat Ricard’s? No, but they all have a unique skill set. It’s his attention to detail and incredible instincts.”
