.png)
Tuesday, Mar 31, 2020 04:22 PM
· Michael Eisen
GIANTS.COM SENIOR WRITER/EDITOR
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – The Giants' newest safety is a Jewish
Olympic rugby player who never played high school football, was a college
walk-on and seldom actually plays safety.
Yes, Nate Ebner is an
interesting guy.
Ebner, 31, is a special
teams dynamo who won three Super Bowls in his eight seasons with the New
England Patriots. When he joined the Giants as a free agent last week, he
reunited with Joe Judge, whose tenure as the Pats' special teams assistant
coach and then coordinator coincided with Ebner's stay in New England.
"(Judge's presence) definitely was a strong point" in
his decision to join the Giants, Ebner said. "Obviously, I have a great
relationship with Joe that was built over nearly a decade. We've worked
together extensively through special teams. Just being in a tough environment
that you see people come and go quite often, to kind of have a face that you
see on a regular basis for, like I said, nearly a decade, I'd be lying if I
said it didn't create a good relationship with him. That definitely played a
part. At the end of it all, I'm excited to get out there and come to a great
organization and get to work."
Ebner played in 127 regular-season and postseason games for New
England without ever starting one. According to Pro Football Reference, in the
last three seasons he had one snap on both offense and defense and 819 on
special teams. He totaled 98 special teams tackles in his eight seasons.
Ebner was a member of the
Patriots teams that won Super Bowls XLIX, LI and LIII. Because he was
injured, Ebner missed New England's loss to Philadelphia in Super Bowl LII. But
his time with the Patriots taught him the value of teamwork, of getting
contributions from everyone and following Bill Belichick's mantra, "do
your job." He will bring those attributes to Judge's Giants.
"That's what great teams do, play for each other,"
Ebner said. "Whatever I'm asked to do, I'm going to do it to the best of
my ability."
Ebner's
story is so much more than football. He made his first athletic mark playing rugby
in his native Ohio. Ebner was a standout on the junior national team and played
in three Junior World Cups. He didn't play football until he made the team as a
walk-on at Ohio State in 2009, the first of three seasons with the Buckeyes.
"I played football when I was in pee
wee in like seventh, eighth grade," Ebner said. "I kind of wanted to
play football my senior year in high school. I chose not to because of the
Junior World Cup. It was kind of a perfect storm for me. I had just finished
playing international rugby against some of the best players in the world. I
played in club rugby at Ohio State and was getting very frustrated, I guess,
but kept it light. Tough situation. Kind of wanted to play football, didn't do
it in high school. Now you're at one of the meccas of college football in the
United States at Ohio State. All you do is hear about these football players. I
knew it was something I wanted to do. (I knew) there wasn't much of a career in
the United States for me to be a professional rugby player. Knowing that and
like I said, all of those other things, it kind of culminated into, 'I'm going
to try walking onto the football team.' I talked to my dad about that and
that's what I did."
Ebner
played so well that he was eventually awarded a scholarship and was voted the
team's best special teams player as a senior in 2011. The Patriots noticed and
drafted him in the sixth round of the 2012 NFL Draft. He totaled 17 special
teams tackles as a rookie and 19 in 2016, when he was named second-team all-pro
as a special teamer.
Earlier that year, the Patriots granted
him a leave of absence so he could participate in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Ebner is one of just seven players in NFL history to participate in the
Olympics and also win a pro football championship. He was the first player to
accomplish that feat in the same year, as the 2016 Patriots defeated Atlanta in
Super Bowl LI.
"I'd definitely say it's special to
be the only person to ever win a Super Bowl and participate in the Olympics in
the same year," Ebner said. "That's very cool. But at the end of the
day, to be able to be on that team that was fortunate enough to go to the Super
Bowl and win it, a lot of that is out of my control. I do what I can for the
team, but that takes not just the players but the coaches and staff. That takes
so many other people, so I was extremely fortunate, lucky to even be in that
situation after the Olympics. A lot of things had to fall in place."
View photos of safety/special teamer Nate Ebner:
Photos: Safety/Special Teamer Nate Ebner
