Isaiah Likely emerging as Giants star after years in Mark Andrews shadow

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.  Get texts from Paul Schwartz with all the latest Giants news and insights, exclusive to Sports+ subscribers.“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.

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