Four Approaches the NY Giants Must Do This Summer

Injuries are going to happen–it’s football, after all. And while it’s understandable that medical personnel don’t want to put injured players out there to risk making something worse, which could render a player unavailable for Week 1, no one who participates in training camp practices will ever be truly 100%.

During the season, we often hear about players who push forward despite having ailments. The medical staff clears those players to participate in practices and football activities after it has been determined that they won’t exacerbate their condition. 

That same approach needs to be taken during the summer, where we see fewer players on the stationary bikes and in red jerseys than we’ve in past summers.

Hold Guys Accountable

A significant problem for the Giants last year was penalties, particularly those related to pre-snap penalties and discipline issues. 

According to NFLPenalties.com, the Giants ranked above the league average in 15 different penalty categories last season, with the three most notable ones being illegal shift (-5.06), delay of game (-4.62), and false start (-3.91) – again, all pre-snap penalties. The Giants also had 41 stalled drives last season due to penalties, both pre- and post-snap.

That needs to be cleaned up, and that starts with holding individuals more accountable, regardless of their position or status. And there’s nothing wrong with putting guys on notice on the practice field, regardless of who they are.

We’re not suggesting that the players be made to run laps as Joe Judge used to have them do. Rather, pull them off the field or get in their faces if they have a concentration mistake.

Play the Starters/Key Reserves

The last thing the Giants can afford this year is a slow start out of the gate, where they go winless in their first two games. 

That’s because those games are against division opponents (Washington and Dallas), and as anyone in the game will tell you, the easiest path to the postseason is to win in one’s division.

Unfortunately, over the last couple of years, the Giants have started the season looking sluggish and unprepared. This is largely due to head coach Brian Daboll’s decision not to give the starters and key reserves a healthy dose of preseason snaps.

Daboll, instead, has substituted joint practices for game snaps. That’s all well and good, but joint practice snaps are conducted in a controlled environment, and don’t necessarily help with establishing the tempo as one might in a game environment. 

This year, we hope that Daboll plays his starters for at least a half during the first and third preseason games, when there are no joint practices scheduled. 

The first game would give the coaches a rough idea of how things are taking shape with the players in pads. The third preseason game would serve as a final dress rehearsal.

While some teams can get away with not playing their starters in the preseason, these are generally the more successful or established ones. The Giants, by contrast, are neither.

There is one other advantage of getting their players' snaps in the final preseason game. There are 17 days in between the final preseason game on August 21 and the start of the regular season on September 7. 

If the Giants were to not give their starters and key players snaps in that third preseason game and instead gave them snaps in the second game, we’d be looking at 22 days.

In short, that’s way too long to let a team go without having reps at game speed. And it’s a legitimate reason as to why the Giants have not come out of the chute looking like they were ready to play.

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Stick with the Same Offensive Line Combination As Much as Possible

One of the more disturbing developments from last summer is that the Giants rarely played their starting offensive line at all during the summer.

Some of that was due to injuries, and some was due to trying different players out along the line. 

While there is nothing wrong with experimenting with different combinations, there has to be a point where the coaches draw the line and start allowing the unit they plan to take into the season to start getting reps together to build cohesion, especially now that pads will be permitted in practice.