THE "BOSS"

[Lughead]

Boss Could Be Perfect Compliment to Shockey

Fifth-round selection displays soft hands and quick grasp of offense during mini-camp .

By Michael Eisen, Giants.com

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May 14, 2007

 

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. � Kevin Boss is no Jeremy Shockey.

 

That is not meant to demean Boss, the 6-6, 253-pound tight end the Giants selected on the fifth round in last month�s NFL Draft. In the two-day rookie mini-camp that concluded today, Boss displayed soft hands and a quick grasp of the offense. He has the size and skill to become the blocker the Giants need at tight end, which will free Shockey to run more frequent pass routes.

 

Giants fifth-round draft pick Kevin Boss could be the #2 tight end the Giants sorely need to free up Jeremy Shockey.But Boss is no Shockey in demeanor. When Shockey joined the Giants as a first-round draft choice in 2002, he was brash, cocky and outspoken. Shockey was a Pro Bowl player that first season (and three times since that year), but he arguably received more attention for the sometimes outrageous statements he made, the company he kept and the parties he attended.

 

It�s safe to say Boss will never appear in a gossip-page photograph with Tara Reid. He is the anti-Shockey, reserved and soft-spoken. Boss grew up in Philomath, Oregon, a town of 4,000 citizens five miles from Corvallis, the home of Oregon State. But Boss attended Western Oregon, so he could play both football and basketball. Western is located in Monmouth, Oregon, which is home to fewer than 8,000 people and has never been confused with Manhattan, where Shockey spent much of his leisure time.

 

It�s doubtful Boss will, at least initially.

 

�I don�t think you�ll see much hell-raising from me,� he said.

 

Shockey came to the Giants from the University of Miami, which was then perhaps college football�s best team. The Hurricanes, then members of the Big East, played before huge crowds in the storied Orange Bowl, and their games were frequently televised nationally.

 

Boss has no such fanfare. He was not offered a scholarship by a Division I school coming out of Philomath High School. He could have taken a shot as a walk-on at Oregon State but chose to go to Western Oregon, a Division II school that competes in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) against Western Washington, Northwest Nazarene and Saint Martin�s, among others. The Wolves� home, uh, stadium is McArthur Field, which has bleachers on just one side and seats 2,500 fans. With standees, perhaps 3,000 people would attend an average Western home game. Boss said the largest crowd he played before in college was 10,000 people at Linfield, one of Western�s biggest rivals. He played in front of larger crowds when, as a member of the Wolves� basketball team, he played at Oregon and Oregon State.

 

Now he�ll play his home games in a stadium that holds roughly 80,000 fans, or more than he played before in an entire football season.

 

�Playing in front of a big crowd is something I�ve always looked forward to doing,� said Boss, who had never been east of Detroit (where his father was raised) before visiting the stadium prior to the draft. �It will be fun.�

 

So, he figures, will learning from Shockey, who has caught 314 career passes and is one of the NFL�s very best tight ends.

 

�Shockey is someone I�ve watched since he was at Miami,� Boss said. �To be able to call him a teammate sounds pretty awesome.

 

�I�m just looking forward to meeting Shockey and learning from him on the field. Just being able to watch him every day in practice will be awesome for me to learn from him.�

 

Despite the differences in their personalities, Boss believes he and Shockey will cultivate a strong working and personal rapport.

 

�It�s hard for me not to get along with someone,� Boss said. �I�m hoping to be able to develop a relationship with him. He is going to be a good mentor on the field to learn from. Like I said, to watch him every day in practice and just really learn a lot from him.�

 

Boss will also take an advanced course in tight end play from Michael Pope, the Giants� tight ends coach who is the best in the business. Pope is entering his 25th consecutive season as an NFL assistant, and the eighth in his second tour of duty with the Giants. Five of his tight ends have been selected to the Pro Bowl: Mark Bavaro, Rodney Holman (Bengals), Ben Coates (Patriots), Stephen Alexander (Redskins) and Shockey.

 

Pope traveled to Oregon to work out Boss, then brought him to the stadium so he could watch tapes of Shockey and other tight ends. The veteran coach is excited about Boss� potential, but not nearly as energized as the youngster is to work with Pope.

 

�I really learned a lot from him in just the time I spent out there at our practice field working out with him,� Boss said. �He spent a lot of time teaching. So it was great having the opportunity to learn from him. I have learned a lot. I kind of joked about learning more from him in those two hours than I did in five years at school. So it was pretty amazing what he can teach.

 

�It�s different coming from a small school � you don�t have position coaches, especially at tight end. You kind of get stuck with the graduate assistants sometimes. Some of them aren�t real familiar with the positions. I had about three of four different tight end coaches in my career there. So I�m looking forward to getting with Coach Pope and really learning a lot with his techniques.�

 

Despite the uneven tutoring, Boss caught 134 passes at Western Oregon, including 51 as a junior in 2005. He gained 1,590 yards and scored 19 touchdowns. Boss also became an outstanding blocker, though he will soon discover that clamping down on DeMarcus Ware and Jevon Kearse is a little different than taking on a defensive end in the GNAC.

 

But Boss isn�t worried about climbing from a small school to the big time.

 

�It�s different, but I think it�s something I�ll be able to adjust to pretty quickly,� he said. �We were all thrown out there pretty quick and once we got out there we were all on a pretty level playing field. It�s something we all have to adjust to and I think it will be a pretty quick process for me.�

 

Hey, that�s a pretty brash statement from a fifth-round draft choice. Maybe Shockey is starting to rub off on him, just a little bit

[Money]

The word Eisen is looking for is "complement." The amount of typo's, misspellings, and grammatical errors he submits on a weekly basis is incredible...

[TaylorBanksCarsonVanPelt]

The word Eisen is looking for is "complement." The amount of typo's, misspellings, and grammatical errors he submits on a weekly basis is incredible...

And I believe the Orgegon town of Corvalis is spelled with one L...not two. Has he never heard of a proof reader and/or proof reading program?

[Treehugger]

Eisen is ridiculous. He's a propaganda man, not a journalist.

[Herc]

The word Eisen is looking for is "complement." The amount of typo's, misspellings, and grammatical errors he submits on a weekly basis is incredible...

 

in the title too no less. dont they have editors over there? or are they too busy adding more blinding colors to the website

[Money]

The best Eisenism was spelling Sinorice Moss's name "Sinorace" for a solid six months...

[gateb]

The word Eisen is looking for is "complement." The amount of typo's, misspellings, and grammatical errors he submits on a weekly basis is incredible...

I'm not sure how many typos that is considering he has one article very two weeks....

 

He's also put Matt Hasselbeck instead of Tim and Santana instead of Sinorice on multiple occasions.

[NightFire]

The word Eisen is looking for is "complement." The amount of typo's, misspellings, and grammatical errors he submits on a weekly basis is incredible...

 

How most people at Giants.com keep their jobs is a mystery. The site is cluster fuck.