NY Giants Day 10 Camp Takeaways

Has New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll finally seen the light when it comes to preseason snaps for his starters and key reserves?

Daboll has been very reluctant to play his starters and key reserves in the preseason, perhaps out of concern for keeping them healthy for the start of the regular season. 

Instead, his practice over the last two years has been that joint practice snaps are more than sufficient in terms of getting players ready, despite the controlled environment these snaps afford the players.

Such was the case last year. The Giants held joint practices with the Lions in Week 1 and the Jets in Week 3 of the preseason, and the starters and key reserves nary saw a snap. 

That could still be the plan for the fourth-year head coach: to hold guys out if there is a joint practice — and there is only one such joint practice planned, that for next week against the Jets.

Regardless of the thinking, it sounds as though Daboll is planning on getting most of his starters and reserves snaps when the team opens its three-game preseason slate on Saturday against the Buffalo Bills.

But now it appears that Daboll might have a change of heart.

“That's something in the next few days we'll talk about as coaching staff, and we'll do whatever we think is best for the team,” he said Monday before the team took the field for another training camp practice in shorts and shells..  

“Right now, these first few days are gonna be about the Giants and we'll have a plan here–I wouldn't say necessarily tonight or, or tomorrow. We'll end up letting these guys go and do what we think is best for the team.  

“Could they play? Yeah, they sure could play,” he added.

The Giants have, over the last two seasons, come out of the gate slow and looking ill-prepared. While there isn’t one specific reason for that, it hasn’t helped that the main players have often gone longer than two weeks without live reps between the second preseason game and the start of the season.

As a result, the Giants have been outscored 68-6 in regular season openers, with the Giants scoring just three points in the first half of those last two season openers.

With two games on the road against division opponents (Washington and Dallas), the Giants, who are in a make-or-break season for both Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen, can ill afford another sluggish start to a season.

The preseason snaps, even though there is no game planning, should go a long way toward helping the Giants inch a lot closer to being ready for a very challenging schedule of opponents.  

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