*Rookie QB Davis Webb and TE Engram were Senior Bowl teammates and are now rookie camp roommates: *
Davis Webb completed a pass to Evan Engram before the rookies even arrived for minicamp in East Rutherford.
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Back in January, the Cal quarterback and the Ole Miss tight end were teammates on the South team at the 2017 Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama. Webb, on his way to being named the MVP of the college all-star game, found Engram for a 10-yard gain late in the first half that helped set up a 39-yard touchdown pass a few plays later.
The South defeated the North, 16-15, and Webb threw for a game-high 165 yards with the one score and no interceptions. But at the Senior Bowl, the week of practice leading up is just as – if not more – important than the game itself. That's when scouts get a close-up look of the prospects as they work through individual and team drills. As it turns out, that's also when Webb did some scouting of his own and found his favorite player.
"I told him that there," Webb said on Giants.com's Big Blue Kickoff Live. "I told him he was my favorite player by far. I loved to watch him at Ole Miss, the way he competes and the way he blocks and catches the ball and gets up the field. And he does the same thing Senior Bowl Week with [executive director] Phil Savage and all of us. Boy, I'm excited to have him as a teammate and looking forward to dealing with him every day."
After leaving Alabama, Engram and Webb went their separate ways and ran the pre-draft gamut, which included the NFL Scouting Combine and their respective pro days. The two still texted throughout the process, and on April 28, they became teammates – again. The Giants selected Webb in the third round following their first-round pick of Engram the night before.
"We definitely hit it off at the Senior Bowl," Engram said Friday after the first practice of rookie minicamp. "I was hyped when his name came across the ticker for New York on Day 2. So it was definitely pretty cool to get to know him, and now we're going to get to play together."
They're not only going to play together. They'll be living together for the foreseeable future.
The two were assigned as roommates, and on the eve of their first practice, they went over flashcards that Webb made. It's a study tool that Webb, a coach's son, picked up from playing at two different high schools and two colleges.
"To me, I thought he was the best tight end [at the Senior Bowl]," Webb said. "He was very physical. A lot people knocked on him because I guess they didn't block as much at Ole Miss, but you can split him out. He's one of the fastest guys in the draft, not just tight ends, just overall. He's a competitor. He works hard. You can tell [because] he dived into the playbook at the Senior Bowl, learned it very quickly there, and he did that last night."
The preparation paid off. Webb and Engram, just as they did on Jan. 28 in Alabama, hooked up for a completion on the first play of rookie minicamp.
"It's the first day. Everybody's heads are kind of spinning," Webb said. "I think, as a quarterback, you have to be able to calm everybody down and tell them the right play and the right protection, the right footwork, and just complete the pass and execute it."
