NFL

Giants finally sign a tight end: Kellen Davis

The Giants went into the offseason with a glaring need for a tight end and on Friday they finally signed one, but the one-year deal they gave to Kellen Davis doesn’t mean they are set at the position.

Davis, 28, is a six-year NFL veteran and becomes the 14th free agent the Giants have signed off another team. He spent his first five seasons with the Bears and got a Super Bowl ring in 2013 spending the year with the Seahawks in a backup role.

Davis is a big lineman (6-foot-7, 265 pounds) and will help in pass protection and run blocking, but he has not been much of a receiving threat, with 50 career catches for 561 yards and 12 touchdowns.

He was a starter with the Bears in 2011 and 2012. In those seasons, he totaled 37 receptions and seven TDs. Davis is coming off a season in which he had three catches in 15 games (four starts) for the Seahawks and was inactive for the Super Bowl.

Perhaps general manager Jerry Reese is going to stick with his belief tight end is not a position where spending much money makes much sense. Reese has mostly gone for inexpensive tight ends acquired in the middle of the draft (Kevin Boss) or off the free-agent scrap heap (Jake Ballard).

The selection of Travis Beckum in the third round of the 2009 draft proved to be a wasted pick. The Giants signed Martellus Bennett for the 2012 season, but he lasted just one year before heading to the Bears. The Giants signed Brandon Myers in 2013, but his stay was only one unimpressive season.

The consensus best tight end in the upcoming draft is Eric Ebron of North Carolina, a physical talent who projects as a down-the-field pass receiving threat. That no doubt certainly sounds good to Eli Manning, and Ebron figures to be on the board when the Giants select at No. 12. But, unless Reese departs from his previous draft strategies, he won’t take a tight end in the first round.

Davis joins an uninspiring tight-end group that for the first time since 2000 will not be coached by Mike Pope, who was fired following the 2013 season.

Adrien Robinson, a 2012 fourth-round draft pick, returns after two injury-filled and unproductive seasons. He was infamously dubbed “the JPP of tight ends’’ by Reese, who viewed Robinson, like Jason Pierre-Paul, as a raw prospect with little college production but tremendous physical ability. He has yet to get an NFL reception.

Also on the roster at tight end: Larry Donnell (three NFL catches) and Daniel Fells, who has 92 NFL receptions playing for four teams.

The Giants also signed receiver Travis Henry, who was signed by the Titans last season as a rookie free agent. Henry, from Florida A&M, has no NFL experience.