NFL

Rookie Hosley may be key to shoring up Giants defense

No one carries less weight around the Giants than Jayron Hosley. But he is the one player who might be capable of tipping the scales in favor of a defense that looks as if there’s a rupture spewing pass completions all over leaky cornerbacks.

Now, no one is intimating that a 5-foot-10, 178-pound bite-size rookie is capable of making a seismic impact and rushing any player on the field before his time smacks of panic mode. The Giants are 0-1 and get to wring their hands during what essentially is a bye weekend. When they return to work on Monday, Michael Coe still will have an achy hamstring, Prince Amukamara still will be waiting for clearance to run on a high ankle sprain, Justin Tryon still will have been beaten badly by Miles Austin for a touchdown and by Kevin (Did anyone draft this guy in fantasy football?) Ogletree for the 13-yard third-down completion that sealed the deal on the Cowboys’ 24-17 party-bashing victory in the regular-season opener.

No team is perfect, but the Giants, with just one reliable cornerback, suddenly are too imperfect for comfort, especially after that one reliable cornerback, Corey Webster, played one of his least-effective games against Tony Romo and his mates. It’s time for a football-field promotion for Hosley, just as it is time for one of the prospects taken high in the draft the past few years to do something sooner, not later. The Giants got nothing out of Amukamara, Marvin Austin and Jerrel Jernigan (picks 1, 2 and 3 in 2011) and there’s no rule against a positive jolt without waiting.

Hosley is a third-round pick, but he can make a difference before first-rounder David Wilson or second-rounder Rueben Randle, not only based on need and opportunity. The Giants were taken with Hosley because he’s a small guy who acts like a big guy and nothing he has done upon arrival has forced anyone to reconsider that. There’s a feeling you get, sometimes accurate, sometimes not.

Hosley gives off a vibe that he’s eager to learn, but ready to roll. Amukamara, last year’s first-round pick, never has given off that vibe. Hosley got through a lacerated knee in training camp and kept on going. He took a painful case of turf toe out of the final preseason game and healed by the opener. Go ask Mark Sanchez if Hosley had any first-time jitters when he jumped a route and took an interception back 77 yards for a touchdown against the Jets.

When Hosley says, “I don’t think the game’s too big for me,’’ for some reason you believe him, even if he doesn’t look big enough for the game. He hears time is needed before putting someone like him out there, but he doesn’t believe it.

“It’s all in your head, that’s what people say but you have to believe in yourself and your teammates have to believe in you,’’ Hosley said. “Once you feel comfortable with what you’re doing, that thought shouldn’t even be in your head.’’

At Virginia Tech, Hosley played outside cornerback, but the Giants are trying to make him a slot corner. That might have to be a back-burner plan. The Buccaneers come to MetLife Stadium on Sept. 16 and no one ever will confuse them with the Greatest Show on Turf. Maybe Hosley isn’t ready to start, but he may be the best available option.

Even before the Cowboys turned cracks into fault lines, coach Tom Coughlin knew this couldn’t be a watch-and-wait season for Hosley.

“We need that guy to really come through for us,’’ Coughlin said earlier this summer.

It has gotten late early in the Giants’ defensive backfield and what better time to see if Hosley can come through. He described himself in training camp as “like that green banana trying to stay green and keep learning before I get ripe.’’

The Giants have to pick somebody, and who’s to say Hosley will slip up?

Shed no tears for Wilson

By now, we know all about David Wilson’s NFL debut, which was a crying shame even if the rookie running back, as he claims, didn’t shed a tear after fumbling on his second rushing attempt. Tomorrow, Doug Martin plays his first game for the Buccaneers in Tampa against the Panthers. Let the comparisons commence.

The next game the Giants play will feature Wilson and Martin, the two top-rated backs in the 2012 NFL Draft. It is believed far more draft boards had Martin ahead of Wilson, leading to speculation the Buccaneers pulled a fast one when they traded up into the first round and took Martin at No. 31, leaving Wilson for the Giants at No. 32.

Not so, insists general manager Jerry Reese, who after the draft was adamant in saying “Martin would not have been our pick’’ and Wilson “was our highest player on our board at the time we picked.’’

Martin, more of a between-the-tackles runner, has been likened to Ray Rice, which is probably why first-year Buccaneers coach Greg Schiano, who coached Rice at Rutgers, coveted him. Wilson is a speedster who wants to take it to the outside and, based on a one-game sample, the fumbling issues he had in college followed him to the pros.

Bradshaw only so-so in opener

Ahmad Bradshaw’s box score numbers — 17 rushing attempts, 78 yards, one touchdown — look pretty darn good. But he was not effective in the Giants’ opener.

He got 33 yards late in the game when the Cowboys were trading yards for time off the clock. On 10 of his runs, he gained three or fewer yards.

The breakdown, in yards per attempt: 2, 3, 2, 3, 5, -2, -1, 0, 2, 5, 2, 5, 5, 10 (TD), 0, 33, 4.