The Giants and the Jets are reinforcing their rosters with a Caribbean twist.
At the N.F.L. draft last month, the Giants selected Jason Pierre-Paul, a son of immigrants from Haiti, with their first pick. Then the Jets took Kyle Wilson, whose father emigrated from Trinidad and Tobago.
The Giants countered in the second round with Linval Joseph, born in St. Croix and raised there until he was 10. The Jets responded by selecting Vlad Ducasse, a Haitian who moved to Connecticut when he was 14.
That group of picks may have given the illusion that the N.F.L. has found a vein of foreign talent to tap in its continual quest to make the league more international. It may have led people to believe that N.F.L. scouts are going to start island-hopping around the Caribbean.
Really, the first four picks of the two New York-area teams, all with strong Caribbean roots? It must be a trend.
“It was coincidence,”
Giants General Manager Jerry Reese said. “You’re overcooking it.”
The N.F.L. seems to experience occasional beyond-the-border surges. There has been a relative proliferation of talent from American Samoa in the past couple of decades. There has been a recent increase in players with Nigerian backgrounds, like Osi Umenyiora of the Giants and James Ihedigbo of the Jets. Still, only about one in 20 players is born outside the United States.
The league does not keep precise counts of player origins. Since 1997, it has asked teams at the start of each season to submit a list of their foreign-born players. In 1997, there were about 55.
The numbers have not budged notably. Last year, there were about 75 foreign-born players out of more than 1,600 roster spots. Roughly one-third of them came from Canada or Germany, where many were born into families of the United States military.
Of the 255 players drafted last week, fewer than 10 were born outside the United States, according to the N.F.L.
More difficult to discern is how many players have strong international ties, as sons of immigrants or because they spent part of their childhoods overseas. Umenyiora, for example, was born in England. Ihedigbo was born in Massachusetts. The mother of Ndamukong Suh, chosen second over all by the Detroit Lions, is from Jamaica, and Suh’s father is from Cameroon. But Suh grew up in Portland, Ore.
None of the four Giants and Jets drafted in the first two rounds this year learned to play the game outside the United States, and only one of the four was officially foreign-born: Ducasse, the Jets’ offensive lineman from Haiti, who speaks with a pronounced accent.
St. Croix, the home of Joseph, the Giants’ defensive tackle, is part of the United States Virgin Islands, an American territory. Wilson, the Jets’ defensive back, grew up in New Jersey. Pierre-Paul, a muscular defensive end who seems chiseled from a mold of quarterback chasers, was raised in Florida.
Still, they have backgrounds in common. The general lack of international flavor in the N.F.L. makes the picks of the Giants and the Jets that much more unusual, even if they have been tossed together to help build foundations for two teams that share a stadium and divide a fan base.
“I think it is coincidence, actually,”
Pierre-Paul said between sessions of the Giants’ minicamp for rookies over the weekend. He did not seem amazed. “I don’t know what the deal is.”
Pierre-Paul proudly tells people he is Haitian-American. His father lost his sight more than 20 years ago, when Pierre-Paul was an infant.
“He had three jobs,”
said Pierre-Paul, one of five children in the family. “My mom stayed home and took care of us. Once he turned blind, she had to learn how to drive and work.”
His mother has spent more than 20 years working as a hotel housekeeper, Pierre-Paul said.
About 25 miles away, at the Jets’ rookie minicamp in Florham Park, N.J., Ducasse discussed his Haitian background. Ducasse was 5 when his mother died. When he was 14, Ducasse and his older brother went to Connecticut to live with an aunt and uncle. His father, Delinois, now works as an accountant in Stamford, Conn., Ducasse said.
The player the Jets picked before Ducasse, Wilson, is expected to be a playmaking defensive back. He has never been to Trinidad and Tobago, although he said he hoped to get there sooner rather than later. His father, Gerry, moved to the United States to attend college.
“It’s definitely something I’m proud of,”
Wilson said of his heritage. “That’s my dad.”
For Joseph, the defensive tackle chosen in the second round by the Giants, the Caribbean is more than a heritage. It is home — or was, until he was 10. He lived near the town of Christiansted, on St. Croix, before he moved with his mother to Gainesville, Fla. Joseph’s father, and much of his extended family, still live in St. Croix.
But this weekend, Joseph was just one of 55 Giants rookies trying to make a first impression. What mattered was not where he was from, but where he was going.
