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Travis Hunter didn’t start a game on both offense and defense during the NFL preseason, but Elijah Chatman did.
While Hunter is the two-way phenom and Jaguars rookie whose Week 1 debut is much anticipated, Chatman is just hoping for an elevation from the Giants practice squad Sunday against the Commanders after he was the team’s most surprising cut at last week’s trim from 90 to 53 players.
“He does what he does,” Chatman laughed when he was mentioned alongside the Heisman Trophy winner and No. 2 pick in April’s draft, “and I’m going to do what I can do.”
It initially looked like Chatman had climbed off the preseason roster bubble by returning to his SMU roots and moonlighting at fullback when not lined up at defensive tackle. He played 38 percent of the regular-season defensive snaps as an undrafted rookie last season.
In stating a case to be the rare two-way NFL player, Chatman displayed a willingness to bang helmets as a lead blocker in practice with the same defensive players who he sits next to in a meeting room.
“You just have to flip the switch,” Chatman said. “It feels normal to me because I’ve been doing it my whole life, so I have experience in going straight from offense to defense. When I’m on offense, I’m thinking, ‘Run through this person.’ When I’m on defense, I’m still thinking about knocking this person back.”
Chatman was positioned between Jaxson Dart and Cam Skattebo on the first play of the preseason finale — clearing a path for Skattebo’s 4-yard gain against the Patriots. He was on the defensive line for the first Patriots snap.
One year ago, Chatman was shoulder to shoulder with Dexter Lawrence II in the trenches in Week 1.
But Chatman was bumped down the depth chart when the Giants added three defensive linemen in the offseason, and his third-down interior pass rushing ability is less valuable because rookie sensation Abdul Carter can fill the role. In the end, D.J. Davidson’s run defense on first and second down probably won him Chatman’s roster spot.
Especially because the Giants have not employed a fullback in head coach Brian Daboll’s first three seasons. Not that the ball carriers would mind having an escort.
“You get a [278]-pound guy going full speed at a linebacker, we know who is going to win that most of the time,” Skattebo quipped. “We knew what the first play [against the Patriots] was going to be. We knew Chat was going to hit somebody and I was going to get the ball. I told him, ‘Let’s go. Let’s take somebody’s head off.’ ”
Chatman had “a lot of NFL teams” looking at him as a fullback before the 2024 draft. Not the Giants, who invited him to try out in rookie minicamp as an undersized defensive tackle at the start of his underdog journey.
The idea to fully utilize Chatman’s versatility came this past offseason, from the scouts who recalled his college profile.
“He’s got speed, quickness, explosion,” Daboll said early in the experiment. “I think every time he’s been in at fullback for us — whether it’s practice or in a game — he’s broken his face mask. He’s a tough guy.”
Is that story true?
“If they weren’t broken,” Chatman laughed, “the damage was noticeable.”
The Giants converted only 66.6 percent of third-and-1s and third-and-2s last season. Chatman, who can be elevated from the practice squad three times before he would need to be signed to the 53-man roster, could add a level of physicality.
“Anybody that’s going out there to run through people and hit people, I’m always a fan of,” said Giants running backs coach Ladell Betts, a former halfback. “It’s been good.”
Chatman finished last season with 21 tackles, one sack and one fumble recovery.
“In my mind, I’m still an undrafted rookie,” he said. “Even though I have a year under my belt, I still look at it as though I have a lot more to prove — because I do. I haven’t done much.”
And what if the Giants want to get really tricky and put the ball in Chatman’s hands the way that linebacker Mike Vrabel and defensive end J.J. Watt used to be used as unexpected goal-line weapons?
“I can catch and I can run the ball, but I prefer to run the ball because I know I have control of it,” Chatman said. “The backs get excited to see me because they know eventually they are going to have space. Whether it’s 1 yard, whether it’s 5 or 6, we are going to get something.”
