How Giants WR David Sills finally broke through and made the Week 1 roster

Halftime may only be 12 minutes, but Denise Sills journeyed back about 20 years in her mind during a recent Giants preseason game. Watching youngsters toss the ball and run around the turf during the intermission, she couldn’t help thinking about her own 26-year-old son, David Sills V. She thought back to when he first started playing football. He was around six or seven years old, and he was just like these kids on the field in front of her, hiking his pants up and a little nervous. But Denise Sills was at MetLife Stadium because her son’s journey over the past two decades led to the real thing.

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“That’s always been his goal is to be in the NFL,” Denise said. “That kind of hit home when I saw that. Like wow, really he was that little when he started?”

Sills has been in the public eye since he was a 13-year-old prodigy who committed to coach Lane Kiffin and USC, changing college recruiting forever. But as the Sills family knows, a lot can change over the course of a few years, let alone a decade. Sills went from being the next big thing to recommitting to West Virginia after a Trojans coaching change. High school injuries — including a hand injury — resulted in a changed throw, and the Mountaineers wanted to switch Sills to wide receiver during his freshman year. So, he spent a season at a California junior college before giving up on his quarterback dreams and going all in on wide receiver.

Despite blossoming into a two-time All-Big 12 First-Team selection, the Sills family had to sit through an agonizing weekend in April of 2019, as Sills went undrafted. He originally signed as a rookie free agent with Buffalo before the Giants scooped him up. He has since spent the past three seasons rotating between the practice squad and active roster, recovering from an ill-timed fractured foot in 2020 to finally playing in four games last year.

So what’s changed this season? Why did he only make an initial 53-man roster this year?

“I think that’s one thing that you need at that position is to be able to play confident and believe in yourself,” Sills said. “Not to say that I wasn’t the last couple of years. I just feel like this year, it’s on another level.”

Throughout Sills’ tenure with the Giants, he’s developed a close relationship with Daniel Jones, often traveling to work out wherever the quarterback might be. During the 2021 offseason, that meant Jones’ hometown of Charlotte, N.C. Luckily, that meant Sills could crash with one of his older sisters, Emma, and brother-in-law, Chad Martin, who had just moved to the city. He slept on an air mattress for two months in the apartment’s loft. They shared one bathroom.

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“He sacrificed his living situation to want to do that,” Emma said.

The day Sills arrived, he opened up the fridge and told his sister, “You guys eat like birds.” The limited fridge and pantry options would hardly suffice a wide receiver on a diet. Emma laughed recalling the moment.

“I’m sorry we don’t eat like professional athletes.”

There was a grocery store run later that day.

While Sills was happy to use his own dietary needs to help improve the couple’s eating habits, his time in Charlotte was also about forging a connection with his quarterback, a mission he accomplished.

“Every day he’s worked his tail off,” Jones said recently. “It’s no surprise to me that he’s in the position he’s in, making plays and playing as well as he is. He’s an extremely hard-working guy. I think that’s always been the consistent thing with him is his work ethic and how he approaches every day.”

Jones said they both enjoy the process of improving, whether it’s in the weight room or watching film. They push each other, spending their workouts building trust by running different routes to develop chemistry beyond the confines of a set play. Their work had paid off, with Jones targeting Sills consistently during preseason games and practices.

Sills’ past resume has also been a boost.

“He’s got a wide receiver skill set with a quarterback perspective,” said Steve Clarkson, Sills’ former quarterbacks coach. “(It’s helpful), being able to see defense from a quarterback perspective and now translating what that can do for the wide receiver and then being able to kind of mesh the two thought processes together.”

Clarkson has watched Sills embrace a genuine passion for the game since he started coaching him when Sills was 10. Even when Sills slept on a friend’s couch during his sophomore year at El Camino College to give quarterback one last go, Clarkson knew he just wanted to play football.

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“For him, the dream was ‘I just want to play. I love the game. I want to play. If that means I’m changing positions, then so be it,’” Clarkson said. “And I think once he was at peace with that in his own mind, it led to where you see him now.”

Stamped 🤮@dsv #giants#TROTD pic.twitter.com/t7SiAEObVO

— Delfonte Diamond (@DelfonteDiamond) March 23, 2022

This offseason, Sills focused in on the areas of his game that needed improvement, rather than just continued weight training. He spent a lot of time in New Jersey but also worked out with wide receivers coach Delfonte Diamond in Houston. Sills always had those workouts on his mind, texting Diamond at all hours to keep him updated on training plans.  Diamond has even come up to New Jersey to workout with Sills, Giants rookie wide receiver Wan’Dale Robinson and star running back Saquon Barkley. Diamond knew Sills was a great athlete from his time at West Virginia, but he didn’t realize how tall the 6-3 Sills actually was. They’ve focused on starting from scratch at the position, working on releases, breakpoint mechanics and more. The consistency and discipline has Diamond seeing a more confident Sills on the field.

“It’s really difficult for a tall receiver like that to really maneuver in small spaces, and for me to see him really developing the quick twitch and change of directions, the whole nine yards, it’s a wonderful feeling for a trainer to see that,” Diamond said.

The improve skill set led to a confidence in Sills that has him not just on the Giants’ initial 53-man roster, but in contention to take the field on Sundays. Longtime friend and former high school and West Virginia teammate, Daikiel Shorts Jr. —  now the wide receivers coach at Houston — knows how committed Sills is to the game. He’s seen it firsthand. Shorts said Sills would fly down to Houston for 24 hours just to squeeze in a workout on an off day.

These days, Shorts sees a friend comfortable in his pro situation.

“He was just so much more confident this summer as far as not going into camp hoping to make the 53 or hoping to make the team,” Shorts said. “It was more so, ‘I’m ready to make the team, and I’m ready to make plays this year.’”

That confidence, which helped him haul in six passes for 57 yards during the preseason, was rewarded not only a roster spot, but with the expectation that he will make an impact.

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“The guys that have been out there and producing, Collin Johnson (now on IR with torn Achilles), David Sills, they’ve stepped their game up,” coach Brian Daboll said recently. “And they’re right in the mix, not just to make a team but to play.”

Finding the news on Twitter last Tuesday, Emma Sills excitedly told her husband that David made the Giants’ initial roster. She knows what David has been through. She remembers the disappointment of going undrafted. She remembers the horribly timed foot injury in 2020.

That’s what made David’s breakthrough last week so special for Emma and the Sills family.

“That’s something that’s been a long time coming,” she said. “We know how hard he works.”

Sibling FaceTimes are a regular occurrence for David, Emma and middle sister, Abby, so they Facetimed during dinner that night. Even over the screen, Emma could tell how happy her brother was.

David admitted it felt really good to not receive a call into the coach’s office. Yet, Sills knows as well as anyone how quickly things can change and added the caveat, “But.”

“It’s a constant evaluation,” he said. “Nothing is set in stone.”

Sills knows he still has a lot more to prove. But now, he has the opportunity to show what he can do.

(Photo: Vincent Carchietta / USA Today)

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