What a sweet deal Drew Wilkins was getting into last season, his first with the Giants.
As the new outside linebackers coach, he inherited Azeez Ojulari, who set a franchise rookie record with eight sacks in 2021.
Next, Wilkins was presented with Kayvon Thibodeaux, the No. 5-overall pick in the 2022 draft.
Not a bad way to embark on your Giants coaching career — handed a pair of pass-rushing youngsters to send on seek-and-destroy missions, targeting opposing quarterbacks.
Thibodeaux, after missing the first two games of the season with a knee injury, was always available.
Ojulari, after also missing the first two games, was not.
The grand plan went awry.
There were just seven regular-season games with Ojulari able to make it onto the field with Thibodeaux, and in only one of those games was Ojulari able to play more than 60 percent of the snaps on defense.
This offseason, the gaudy newcomers on defense are Bobby Okereke, a starting inside linebacker, and Deonte Banks, the first-round pick and presumptive starter at one cornerback spot.
It is tempting to count Ojulari as a newcomer, as well, given his repeated and prolonged absences in 2022.
The Giants, starting with the work in the spring, did everything possible to get Ojulari ready for the grind ahead without experiencing any setbacks.
So far, so good — with so, so far yet to go, with this year’s training camp set for the last week of July.
“Azeez is moving around really well,’’ Wilkins said last week as the Giants closed down their mandatory minicamp. “He worked really hard in the offseason. We have a really great strength program, really great trainers. He put together a great plan — here’s areas he can attack things differently.
“He did a lot of things really well last year. He had a great training camp. Obviously he had to battle through some things, but when you look at the end-of- the-year stats, we’d love to have him out there a lot more than he was. Really, he had one of the highest sacks per rush in the league. It’s making sure he’s out there and he’s rolling, because when he is, he can be a problem.’’
The main problem with Ojulari was not what he inflicted on others but what he was unable to do for himself.
In the spring, he strained a hamstring working out away from the team and missed the first three weeks of training camp.
He came up limping with a calf strain in an Aug. 25 joint practice with the Jets that kept him out of the first two games of the season.
He played two games before sustaining another calf injury that put him on injured reserve — missing the next seven games.
On Christmas Eve in Week 16, he stormed in for a sack of Kirk Cousins but turned his ankle on the play.
Ojulari lasted just seven snaps the next week against the Colts then sat out the regular-season finale.
In two playoff games, Ojulari, clearly not fully healthy, was on the field for a total of just 22 snaps.
When he was right, Ojulari was a force.
He had 5.5 sacks in just 140 pass rush snaps, according to Pro Football Focus.
Thibodeaux, in 409 pass rush snaps, had four sacks in his rookie year.
Just eight players in the league averaged more than Ojulari’s 0.79 sacks per game.
Cowboys star Micah Parsons also averaged 0.79 sacks per game, but he played in all 17 games to amass his 13.5 sacks.
There is no doubt the Giants are counting on Ojulari and Thibodeaux to be ascending players, as there was no real movement at the position.
Veteran Jihad Ward and 2019 third-round pick Oshane Ximinez were re-signed, and oft-injured Elerson Smith remains on the roster.
The Giants are running it back with their outside linebackers.
“I really like that room,’’ defensive coordinator Wink Martindale said. “I like its personality. Drew Wilkins does a great job with them. They’re leaders in their own right. I just think that if you’ve seen ’Zeez, and are around him all the time, you can see that he’s, the best way I could describe it, a lot more sturdy this year. We’ll see how that translates because it’s a crazy league. We’ll see how that translates.’’
The Giants need “more sturdy’’ to translate into “more games played’’ for Ojulari.
If he can stay healthy, the Giants believe he can reside among the NFL’s sack leaders.
“We’re excited,’’ Wilkins said, “for where he’s gonna take his thing.’’
