Marshall Newhouse

Marshall Newhouse opened training camp as the Giants' starting right tackle. (William Perlman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

EAST RUTHERFORD -- Eugene Monroe. Phil Loadholt. Anthony Davis. Russell Okung. Donald Penn. Ryan Clady. Name an offensive tackle on the market this offseason and odds are that he's been linked to the Giants as a potential upgrade for right tackle Marshall Newhouse.

Newhouse, who started 14 games last season for the Giants, retreated to his home in Texas this summer. But that wasn't far enough away to escape the speculation about potential targets to take his job.

"I see it, but at this point, that's just part of the deal," Newhouse told NJ Advance Media. "I feel like they wouldn't be doing their due diligence as a front office if they weren't doing that. Then also, I can't be hard on myself and thinking, 'Oh, they hate me' or 'They don't want me here.' That's just what's got to happen. At the end of the day, if they want me to compete or if they want to make changes, you've just got to go with it and make the best of that situation."

That's the outlook of a player entering his seventh season with his third NFL team. Newhouse admits he wouldn't have handled the situation as well earlier in his career.

"I got all kinds of riled up," Newhouse said. "I had situations in the past where either I saw it outwardly in the media or I felt it internally within the organization, and I didn't know how to handle it. There wasn't an older guy to take me aside and say, 'This is what goes on.' I just kind of had to figure it out for myself. You make mistakes, you maybe handled stuff poorly and you learn from it down the road. I've been fortunate enough to get an opportunity to have learned from it and treat it differently."

A fifth-round pick out of TCU by the Packers in 2010, Newhouse combined to start 29 games at left tackle during his second and third seasons in Green Bay. But he lost his starting job in his fourth season and then signed with the Bengals as a free agent in 2014.

"I didn't handle change well," Newhouse said. "I didn't handle potential change. I just assumed intention on a lot of stuff. I heaped a lot of intention on decisions or non-decisions and just played a stupid mental game and drove myself crazy. It was just dumb and immature."

Newhouse believes that he has the confidence of the Giants' coaching staff. General manager Jerry Reese offered a tepid endorsement of Newhouse on Sunday.

"He has played a lot of football," Reese said. "He is in a battle with Bobby Hart and some more guys out there. Don't count (Newhouse) out. You don't just play (six) years in this league and start for the most part."

Reese signed Newhouse to a two-year, $3 million contract last March after the 6-foot-4, 328-pounder started five games for the Bengals in 2014. The plan was for Newhouse to be a backup, but Will Beatty suffered a season-ending injury in May.

Beatty's injury moved Newhouse into the lineup and he started 14 games at right tackle last season. While Newhouse admits his play could have been better, he doesn't know why he became such a whipping boy.

"It's a little bit of people who have the power of press not having a full contextual picture of what it takes to be an offensive lineman," Newhouse said. "So, there are results on the field and at times the results were substandard. When you don't play up to someone's ability and you're not helping them enough to win, then people look to make changes. But there's also a whole other gamut of: Do they know how hard of a worker I am? Do they know what I bring to the team in other aspects of football? There's just a lot of stuff that doesn't get taken into account because they don't have the entire picture."

Newhouse said his family and teammates are the only things that matter. Everything else is "just puff. It's clouds."

For now, Newhouse is the Giants' starting right tackle. He knows that could change, but he's not going to spend any time worrying about that possibility.

"There are definitely days in the past where that kept me up at night and caused me anxiety, but just not anymore," Newhouse said. "Life is too short, this game means too much to me. My career is on the downhill slope and I just don't have time in the day. I see it, but I just don't have time in the day to worry about that. I've got to take care of me. I am going to play my butt off and let the cards fall where they may."

Dan Duggan may be reached at dduggan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DDuggan21. Find our Giants coverage on Facebook.