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jerseygiantfan

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  1. it was but I am kinda mad at you!! Tyin me up in the pick em! I was sitting in first until I stupidly picked the Rams
  2. and then there we go. This team is broken
  3. Maybe Colin Cappernick wants to come play for us
  4. what the fuck is wrong with this team???
  5. fuck I am mad the starters got a week break and this is the shit we come with??
  6. Wow I've never seen a team NOT show up like this fml
  7. Grading the Giants 2022 NFL draft picks: Joe Schoen off to good start By Ryan Dunleavy May 1, 2022 5:14am Updated Up Next - The New York Post rates the Giants 2022 NFL Draft picks The New York Post rates the Giants 2022 NFL Draft picks | The last time that the Giants added as many players in the NFL draft as they did this week was when Eli Manning was in his final spring camp at Mississippi. In a sign of how wide open the competition is for roster spots, the Giants made 11 picks in the 2022 NFL Draft. General manager Joe Schoen sought versatility as he tries the affordable homegrown way to improve the underwhelming roster he inherited. Schoen’s first draft was a bit of a roller-coaster ride, with a dip in the middle, but he proved he has the authority to make his choices and he has belief in his convictions. Here are The Post’s pick-by-pick grades for the Giants’ draft class: Round 1, No. 5 overall: Kayvon Thibodeaux (Edge, Oregon) Schoen was prepared for every scenario within the top five picks and showed it by abandoning the plan to take an offensive tackle in order to maximize the value of his team’s first two picks. After 19 sacks in college, Thibodeaux profiles as the Giants’ most dangerous pass rusher since Jason Pierre-Paul was traded before the 2018 season. He even possesses some of Justin Tuck’s inside-outside versatility. The Giants felt comfortable after investigating questions about his effort and commitment. Grade: A- Round 1, No. 7 overall: Evan Neal (RT, Alabama) Thibodeaux and Neal widely were considered the top two prospects in the class as recently as October. The Giants landed both because they were comfortable letting the Panthers choose the first offensive tackle at No. 6, knowing that they had near-identical grades on both Ikem Ekwonu (whom Carolina selected) and Neal. Pairing Neal, a career 40-game starter, with 2020 first-round left tackle Andrew Thomas will go a long way toward solving a decade-long problem. Grade: A+ Kayvon Thibodeaux and Evan Neal AP; Cal Sport Round 2, No. 43 overall: Wan’Dale Robinson (WR, Kentucky) Instead of drafting a potential starter at tight end, guard, linebacker or safety, the Giants traded back twice from No. 36 and wound up with a 5-foot-8 gadget receiver. Robinson was productive (104 catches for 1,334 yards) last season, but had as many drops (seven) as touchdowns. His skills overlap with those of 2021 first-rounder Kadarius Toney. Unlike available receivers Skyy Moore, John Metchie and Alec Pierce, Robinson wasn’t included in The Post’s scouts-aided Top 100 rankings or the NFL Network’s Top 150. Grade: D+ Round 3, No. 67 overall: Joshua Ezeudu (OG, North Carolina) Throw him into the deep mix to start at left guard. Ezeudu has tackle/guard flexibility — after starting at three positions and sometimes rotating positions during one drive — but still is considered a developmental prospect with upside as a future starter. He blocked in an RPO offense, in which Giants quarterback Daniel Jones shines. Grade: B Joshua Ezeudu USA TODAY Sports Round 3, No. 81 overall: Cordale Flott (CB, LSU) The issue with constant regime changes like the Giants have had is that new evaluators want their own talent. So the Giants picked a slot cornerback in the middle rounds for the third straight draft (Darnay Holmes, Aaron Robinson). Flott, who made one interception in 35 career games, was a consensus fourth- or fifth-rounder who looks like a reach. Grade: C Round 4, No. 112 overall: Daniel Bellinger (TE, San Diego State) Much the opposite of departed tight end Evan Engram, Bellinger’s strengths are run blocking and securing the catch (zero drops on 31 catches last season). Bellinger is nowhere near as explosive as Engram, but Ricky Seals-Jones is the pass-catcher in the Giants’ new tight end duo. Bellinger could also play H-back, which is a trait the Giants want in backup tight ends. Grade: B+ Round 4, No. 114 overall, Dane Belton (S, Iowa) The Giants waited too long to address safety considering there were only two (Xavier McKinney, Julian Love) on the roster. Belton lined up as a hybrid outside linebacker/safety and earned his way onto First-Team All-Big Ten, but his 4.43-second 40-yard dash pushed him up draft boards. Five interceptions last season was nice, but he needs to be better against the run to play in the box. Grade: B- Round 5, No. 146 overall: Micah McFadden (LB, Indiana) It’s not difficult to picture defensive coordinator Wink Martindale pounding the table here. McFadden’s three straight seasons of double-digit tackles suggests how aggressive he was in a blitz-heavy defense. Sometimes, the scheme just fits a player. He was the highest-graded off-ball linebacker as a pass rusher in the nation last season, according to Pro Football Focus. Grade: A- Micah McFadden AP Round 5, No. 147 overall: D.J. Davidson (DT, Arizona State) After years of overdrafting interior defensive linemen who don’t pressure the passer, the Giants found a stout run-stuffer in the late rounds. He played in just eight games over his first three years after high school. He’s approaching his four-year wedding anniversary and 25th birthday. He’s a 327-pounder with the readiness to use his strength against grown men. Grade: C Round 5, No. 173 overall: Marcus McKethan (OG, North Carolina) While the Giants are heavily invested at tackle, they are assembling lottery tickets at guard. The 6-foot-6, 340-pound McKethan, who was Ezeudu’s teammate in college, looks and acts the part of a mauler. Power is good, but only if it is paired with body control to not fall out of position. He started 37 games at right guard. Grade: C
  8. The Giants didn’t screw it up in NFL Draft 2022 – here’s where the hard part begins By Paul Schwartz April 29, 2022 1:05pm Updated 4.29.22 | New York Minute | Jets and Giants draft a total of five players in 1st round 4.29.22 | New York Minute | Jets and Giants draft a total of five players in 1st roundclose New York Minute | Jets and Giants draft a total of five players in 1st round 4.29.22 | New York Minute | Jets and Giants draft a total of five players in 1st roun Giants decline Daniel Jones' fifth-year option, pick up Dexter Lawrence's | New York Giants 1st Round Pick Kayvon Thibodeaux Discusses Being Drafted by the G-Men | It can be considered an early draft haul, but a caveat (or two) is in order. Picking at 5 and 7, a team is supposed to find real talent to add to the roster. One former NFL coach said Thursday morning that there was almost no way for Schoen and the Giants to mess this up – they were going to get two excellent players, picking where they were. On defense, if it wasn’t Thibodeaux, it probably would have been cornerback Sauce Gardner, who went No. 4 to the Jets. If Travon Walker would have dropped, the Giants would have taken him at 5. If Neal had been taken by the Panthers at No. 6, the Giants would have pounced on Ickey Ekwonu at No. 7 (Carolina took him at 6). Whatever combination of offense/defense or defense/offense the Giants reeled in, the reviews likely would have been uber-positive. There are no guarantees with any of these picks. Today’s Can’t Miss is tomorrow’s Can’t Play. Glowing pre-draft reports and buzz on these players is not always a portent of things to come. Thibodeaux might end up being a high-profile, dynamic pass rusher and Neal might be a quiet, unassuming tower of strength at right tackle. So much has to go right, though. Team fit, adaptability to coaching, time, place, health, attitude all come into play. It is always so much more than talent. The talent part, the Giants got right. Now, all the other stuff has to coalesce for this to truly be a transcendent first round for the Giants. The first round is not the be-all, end-all, though, as the Giants have seven more picks in this draft, including the No. 36 overall selection Friday night, high in the second round. Day 2 is a huge day for the Giants, as they hope to come out of the second and third round with players capable of making an immediate impact. Here is where the tougher and more telling work takes place for Schoen. And he knows it. There were only so many outcomes that could transpire ahead of the Giants in the first round. “We had been through so many scenarios, the exact scenario that played out, we’ve been through it probably 15 times this week,’’ Schoen said. “We would stay in my office and move stuff around, ‘What do we do here, what could we do here?’ We had a couple rhymes in place for different scenarios. It was very seamless. It was easy because where we were at five and seven, it was easy to plan for that and narrow your focus. “[Friday] and Saturday may be a little bit different. You’ve got to look at our picks further down in the third round.’’ It was difficult for Schoen to get it wrong in the first round. The Giants need him, on Day 2 and Day 3, to separate himself from the pack and show why he was such a hot general manager prospect. Here are five thoughts about what happened and what might happen: 1. Before we move forward, it is striking to look back to Thursday night to witness up close just how in sync Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll appear to be. They do not need time to build a relationship because they arrived with a bond formed during their four years together with the Bills in Buffalo. They did not need to figure out how the other guy evaluates players or prioritizes skill-sets because they already knew that about each other. “We felt very comfortable,’’ Daboll said. “The defensive guys went out golfing [Tuesday morning], and the offensive staff went out and did another thing. We felt comfortable. Credit to Joe and the scouting staff. They put the time in, along with the coaches. It was a team effort. Feel like we have two good players to help us, and now it’s going to be their job to come in here, work hard, learn how we do things, and help them develop.’’ Daboll seems content to cede this time of year – roster building season, if you will – to Schoen. Once training camp takes hold and the football begins, Schoen will drift into the background and it will be Daboll taking center stage. 2. The Giants will now get to see Gardner play in their own building at MetLife Stadium, but wearing Jets green. Sauce on the side. Derek Stingley Jr. went to the Texans at No. 3. The need for help at cornerback goes from DEFCOM 3 to DEFCOM 1 depending on if James Bradberry is on the roster or not. With him, this is not a glaring gap in the defense. Without him, well, new defensive coordinator Wink Martindale is going to have to improvise and that is extremely difficult to do, manufacturing coverage. Bradberry’s salary cap hit of $21.8 million cannot be part of the financial structure in 2022 and trading him away is proving to be a difficult assignment. The Giants not selecting a corner in the first round, Schoen said, “doesn’t affect James at all. I’ve said it all along, there are contingency plans. We still have three picks tomorrow night, a fourth, two fifths and a sixth. There are plenty of picks to be had.’’ Translation: The Giants need another cornerback and will take one, most likely on Day 2. Four cornerbacks were taken in the first round and any hope by the Giants that Florida’s Kaiir Elam would be on the board in the second round was dashed when the Bills took him at No. 23. It looks as if the Giants will have to take a cornerback at No. 36 overall if they are planning for life after Bradberry. The best of the bunch are Andrew Booth of Clemson, Roger McCreary of Auburn and Kyler Gordon of Washington. The Giants have the fourth pick in the second round. Will one of these corners make it to them? If they do not take a corner Friday night, it looks as if Schoen’s “contingency plan’’ for finding a way to keep Bradberry will be enacted. 3. What about tight end? The old guard (Evan Engram, Kyle Rudolph) is gone and the replacements in free agency (Ricky Seals-Jones and Jordan Akins) are stop-gap measures. Is the second round too early to address this need? Not if the Giants want to get Trey McBride of Colorado State, the most accomplished pass-catcher in this draft class. There were no tight ends taken in the first round, so this is fertile territory, and the Giants could wait until the third round and possibly early on Day 3 to find options such as Greg Dulcich (UCLA), Jeremy Ruckert (Ohio State), Jelani Woods (Virginia) or Jake Ferguson (Wisconsin). 4. The trade buzz around Kadarius Toney was more talk than action. The Giants put it out there and not much more came of it. Toney stayed away from the first three weeks of the voluntary offseason workout program, including the voluntary minicamp, but he was in the building this week. He is a talent that needs to be shaped. Without him, Daboll’s vision of his offense becomes blurrier. Adding talent at wide receiver is not a priority, but in this NFL, the more the better. There were six receivers and no running backs taken in the first round, another indication of what the league values and how offenses work nowadays. The best on the board are George Pickens (Georgia), Skyy Moore (Western Michigan), David Bell (Purdue) and Christian Watson (North Dakota State). Adding a receiver should never be a surprise for any team. 5. The differences in the conference calls with Thibodeaux and Neal not long after the Giants took them could not have been more stark. Thibodeaux was nearly bursting through the phone line, sounding as if he injected caffeine directly into his veins. Neal, reserved, sounded as if he just woke up. There are all sorts of players, personalities and prospects. The Giants added two of the marquee names in this draft and they will be forever linked as classmates. They were both in Las Vegas on Thursday night, and after the announcements were hanging out together for the first time as teammates, the start of a journey together. 5A. A few more players for the Giants to consider Friday night: Safeties Jalen Pitre (Baylor) and Jaquan Brisker (Penn State), linebackers Leo Chenal (Wisconsin) and Nako obe Dean (Georgia). It does sound as if Schoen feels good about the depth he has assembled on the interior of the offensive line, which is an indication he is not desperate for additional bodies on Day 2.
  9. Note to John Mara: Talk is cheap, fix the Giants now By Steve Serby January 12, 2022 8:15pm Updated Joe Judge fired as Giants coach after two seasons The pain on John Mara’s face reflected the pain in his Big Blue heart, because the Giants have been his life, will always be his life, a football life during which he has endured the agony of The Fumble, celebrated the euphoria of Bill Parcells and then Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning, and now Rock Bottom, N.J. He was asked if this — the empty seats, the social media mocking, the 22-59 record the last five years — was his lowest moment, if this was as embarrassed as he’s been as a Giant, and he said: “Honestly I would have to say yes. Yes it is. I kept thinking during the season that we had hit rock bottom and then each week it got a little worse.” So once again, the fan base is at wit’s end, sick and tired of being sick and tired, as sick and tired of being sick and tired as Mets fans were during too much of the Wilpon Era. His once-proud franchise has fallen and it can’t get up. And he is the reason it has fallen. Another mea culpa, an acknowledgment that he has never been more embarrassed over the plight of his Giants, won’t stop the angry emails that are coming at him again, won’t soothe the savage beast inside the Giants fan. Nor should it. So there he was on a Zoom call, naked to the world without a general manager or a head coach, the presence of his brother Chris and nephew Tim inside 1925 Giants Drive a source of contention for many who choose to hold them somewhat accountable for the failure of The Mara Way. John Mara Getty Images You wonder how Mara can walk past the four Lombardi Trophies inside the glass case in the lobby without a yen to go watch “The Way We Were.” “We’re gonna get it right this time,” Mara vowed. Now there is a promise certain to fall on deaf ears if there ever was one … unless there are Giants fans who cling desperately to the hope that the law of averages will save him, and them. No one knows better than the Giants fan — well, maybe the Jets fan, maybe the Lions fan — that there are no guarantees Mara will get it right this time. More than ever, now that he recognized and acknowledged he finally had to blow it up, the message is a simple one: Don’t just tell us, John. Show us, John. He has talked about losing credibility with the fans so often since Coughlin left that Giants fans view him as Wellington’s Boy Who Cries Wolf. “I’m gonna have to earn their trust again,” Mara said. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell won’t be playing the part of Pete Rozelle delivering any George Young facsimile, not that there is one, to the Giants. John Mara Robert Sabo This will be Mara’s baby. “I feel very good about the group of candidates for the general manager position that we have scheduled right now,” he said. “I think any one of a number of them would make an excellent general manager.” But how can he know for sure sight unseen? He interviewed Bills assistant GM Joe Schoen on Wednesday morning, and then Cardinals vice president of scouting Adrian Wilson. Who has he leaned on for the scouting reports? Mara indicated he had done his due diligence on Judge, and here we are again. “I am confident that we have the resources to make the right choice here,” Mara said. Giants fans can take solace in the fact Mara is now committed to something other than the All in the Family Way that resulted in Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur and Joe Judge and staying too long with Jerry Reese and then Dave Gettleman. All the better if Mara is enlightened by what he hears from his GM candidates and becomes better equipped to see the light that shines outside of 1925 Giants Drive. We were told that the new GM and the head coach he hires — with the obligatory final say from Mara and co-owner Steve Tisch — will decide the respective fates of Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley. Not his brother Chris. Not his nephew Tim. “I’m always conscious of personnel around the league,” Mara said. “I always keep a list of possible head coaches, possible general managers. I look at the successful teams and what they’re doing. I have a lot of people around the league that I talk to, whose opinions that I respect. At the end of the day, Steve and I put together the list.” Mara is a good man, but loyalty to a fault has been a fault of his in the football domain. He has long been a believer in stability and continuity, but incompetence everywhere he has turned lately, in the front office and on the playing field, has shaken his penchant for patience. Patience is a virtue, yes … until it isn’t. You can’t blame him for firing McAdoo after two years, for firing Shurmur after two years, for firing Judge after two years, for letting Gettleman retire now (cough, cough), as gut-wrenching as it has been for him. The fan in him can’t force himself to be patient when he’s crying inside. “In terms of forcing myself, I wanted to do that very badly this year,” Mara said, “but I just didn’t see any end in sight. I just thought we had reached a point where I didn’t see a clear path to making significant progress, and just thought that we needed to hit the reset button.” The reset button has been hit. Giants fans will be praying for a Maracle in the Meadowlands. So just don’t tell us, John. Show us, John.
  10. Joe Judge decided his own fate — now John Mara needs to make it official By Ian O'Connor January 10, 2022 9:48pm Updated MORE FROM:IAN O'CONNOR Fifteen years ago, John Mara the human being versus John Mara the football man was a much easier fight for the football man to win. The Giants owner was debating whether to fire Tom Coughlin, who had gone one-and-done in the playoffs for a second straight year and had displayed a great talent for pissing off the players and the press. Mara wanted more production out of the offense and more consistency out of young Eli Manning, but above all he wanted his head coach to stop making life miserable for everyone around him. The day after the 2006 season ended, when it appeared Coughlin wasn’t embracing the urgency of the moment, one team official heard Mara raise his voice in anger about potential consequences. If Coughlin didn’t agree to make substantial changes in his draconian approach and become more user-friendly, Mara told me years later, he would have fired him. Coughlin ultimately informed his boss that he wanted to install a leadership council of veteran players to help him connect with the locker room. “If I could do cartwheels,” Mara said, “I would’ve done one that day.” But in the end, Coughlin’s record on the field made him worth the trouble. He had done some big-time winning as a pro and college head coach (Jacksonville Jaguars, Boston College), and he’d already won the Giants a division title (at 11-5) in his first three seasons. He had earned the benefit of the doubt. Joe Judge has earned no such thing. He had never held the top job anywhere when the Giants hired him out of left field two years ago, at age 38, as a former apprentice under Bill Belichick and Nick Saban who spoke of building a physically tenacious Giants program that would make Coughlin and Bill Parcells proud. John Mara must make the call to fire Joe Judge, the Post’s Ian O’Connor writes. AP, Getty Two seasons later, his vision of fielding a team that would “punch you in the nose for 60 minutes” has been reduced to a punch line. He lost a starting quarterback who was 4-7 on the year, and 12-25 overall, and yet his team completely fell apart. The Giants were everything their coach swore they wouldn’t be — easy to block and easier to tackle. So it was fitting that Judge ran two clown-show plays in a season-ending loss to Washington, the division rival he’d called a clown-show organization. Truth is, Judge fired himself Sunday. He had the job for 2022, and he handed it right back. Mara was ready to allow him to finish 4-13 on top of last year’s 6-10, ready to give him a competent GM to work with in Year 3, and then Judge showed a shocking lack of judgment and awareness by running those damn quarterback sneaks. The fans had been through hell for the better part of a decade, and after promising them a team that would mirror the blue-collar ethos of the region, Judge played a cruel hoax on them. He quit on those people rather than call for a couple of traditional handoffs and a punt, and in the process made a laughingstock of the franchise and the men who own it. Those men, Mara and Steve Tisch, pressed Judge for explanations in a Monday afternoon meeting that was expected to lead to additional deliberations Tuesday. In an earlier press release announcing Dave Gettleman’s forced retirement, Tisch offered up the harshest quote of the bunch when he said, “It is an understatement to say John and I are disappointed by the lack of success we have had on the field.” An Oscar-winning film producer, Tisch is tired of being embarrassed in front of his rich and famous friends. His presence in Monday’s meeting was worth noting. He is an equal partner, and he did once stop Mara’s brother Chris from becoming the team’s GM. If John doesn’t like Steve as much as his father Wellington liked Bob Tisch, he does respect Steve and does listen to him. John Mara, Steve Tisch Robert Sabo In the end, by the terms of their partnership, Mara will make the call on Judge. He will either fire the coach, keep him for another year, or keep him waiting until the new GM decides yes or no in the coming weeks. Meaning this is now another case of Mara’s human side wrestling with Mara’s football side. A lot of owners would have fired Judge before he made it out to the parking lot Sunday night, just not Mara. Those of us who have covered the owner for a long time have seen his common decency, as they say, on and off the field. Everyone should want a boss who forever looks for reasons to keep people employed. But Mara isn’t measuring the merits of Tom Coughlin here. Judge talked his way into this job, and then talked everyone into believing he would pave a path to long-term glory. In his 33rd game, the Giants coach showed the world that his sales pitch was a lie. Judge was his own judge and jury. He convicted himself. John Mara just needs to sign the papers. Today.
  11. Giants must find way to beat Dolphins with Mike Glennon – no excuses By Ian O'Connor December 4, 2021 1:27pm Updated Daniel Jones has been ruled out of Sunday’s game at Miami with a bum neck, and suddenly the Giants are supposed to have only a slim chance of winning. How exactly does that work? How does the absence of a quarterback who has lost 25 of his 37 starts, for a winning percentage of 32.4, turn what was a manageable proposition for the Giants into Mission: Next to Impossible? When you substitute in Mike Glennon and his 6-21 career record and 28.6 winning percentage, that’s how. It is a cold, hard NFL fact that the dropoff from the first-string quarterback to the second-string quarterback is the biggest dropoff in sports. Very few people on the planet can play the game’s most important position with any degree of success. There might be 32 teams in the league, but there are most definitely not 32 capable quarterbacks to go around. So when backups get the ball, America’s most popular game often gets reduced to an unwieldy, unwatchable mess. But here is the one benefit to having a starter with a 12-25 career record: The dropoff to the proverbial next-man-up shouldn’t have a dramatic impact on a team’s chances of prevailing. And after 11 games of mostly uneven and uninspired performances, the Giants are way overdue to accomplish something they are not expected to accomplish — like winning two games in a row for the first time this year. So no excuses: The Giants need to figure out how to win this game and keep their season alive. Remember, this is a franchise that once won a Super Bowl with a backup quarterback, against an opponent that would beat the 2021 Dolphins by three touchdowns. Mike Glennon walks onto the field at practice Wednesday. Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post No, Glennon isn’t Jeff Hostetler, not even close. But the point is, there are ways for mediocre and even sub-mediocre teams to win with backup quarterbacks. The Jets won a game this season with a backup, Mike White, who looked like Joe Namath on steroids against a playoff team, the Bengals. The Texans beat the Titans on the road with Tyrod Taylor throwing for just 107 yards. The Dolphins beat the Ravens with Jacoby Brissett throwing for just 156 yards. “We have a lot of confidence in Mike,” said Giants head coach Joe Judge, who called the eight-year veteran “a true professional” who takes his preparation very seriously every week. “We expect Mike to go in and run the offense,” Judge said. Maybe Glennon will even run the offense better than Jones did, though that’s an awfully low bar to clear. The Giants are averaging 18.4 points per game, a stat that got Jason Garrett fired as offensive coordinator and got Freddie Kitchens promoted to play-caller. Given that the 6-foot-7 Glennon is far less mobile and athletic than Jones, and given that Judge’s former colleague in New England, Miami coach Brian Flores, loves to attack on defense, expect the Dolphins to throw the kitchen sink at Kitchens’ quarterback. Glennon might be able to handle it, despite the fact he hasn’t won a start since 2017 and went 0-5 for last year’s 1-15 Jaguars. He looked pretty good in his one Giants appearance at Dallas, after Jones suffered a concussion, throwing for 196 yards and a touchdown in the second half. And for what it’s worth, his career quarterback rating of 83.1 is right behind Jones’s (84.3) and Eli Manning’s (84.1). Oh, and it’s ahead of Hostetler’s (80.5). The Giants will still need to play at a high level around Glennon to make this work, and that won’t be easy without Sterling Shepard and Kadarius Toney. But as they stand one game out of the NFC’s seventh and final playoff spot, with a long list of fellow mediocrities to hurdle on the way there, the Giants should be motivated to honor the words of co-owner John Mara, who called theirs a playoff roster in the spring. The returning Logan Ryan, two-time Super Bowl champ with the Patriots and a veteran of 15 postseason games, said last week’s ugly victory over Philadelphia was reason to hope that the Giants can still qualify for the tournament. “A playoff team needs to be a team that’s resilient,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how it went. … A team like Miami, who lost seven straight, they just won four straight. They’re playing as well as anybody in football right now at finding ways to win. A playoff team finds a way to win — ugly, pretty, whatever it is. Last week was a good example of that. … You’ve got to play well at the right time, and this is the time that matters.” This is the Sunday that the Giants need to become relevant again. They are not playing Don Shula’s 1972 Dolphins. They are playing a beatable team that they need to handle, and no, a backup quarterback doesn’t qualify as an excuse to fail.
  12. Daniel Jones injury puts Giants status in serious jeopardy By Ryan Dunleavy November 30, 2021 6:37pm Updated The Giants might be forced to turn to a new quarterback to go with their new offensive coordinator after the latest injury to Daniel Jones. Jones is dealing with a strained neck that will restrict his practice movement and puts him in serious jeopardy of missing Sunday’s game against the Dolphins as well as additional games because his recovery timeline is week-to-week, sources told The Post. Mike Glennon is expected to start in place of Jones, who played through all of Sunday’s game against the Eagles after suffering the neck injury on the second play, NFL Network reported. The Giants signed Jake Fromm off the Bills practice squad, sources confirmed. Since coach Joe Judge arrived, the Giants have carried only two quarterbacks on the 53-man roster except in cases of injury, so Fromm’s addition Tuesday afternoon was the first sign of concern. Jones missed two starts as a rookie (ankle), two starts last season (hamstring) and was knocked out of a game earlier this season with a concussion. The Giants are 2-2 when Jones is sidelined, with both Eli Manning in 2019 and Colt McCoy in 2020 splitting results. Daniel Jones is iffy for the Week 13 matchup with the Dolphins. Robert Sabo Jones ran for a 5-yard gain on the second play Sunday and took high-body shots from two Eagles defenders as he slid. He ran the ball twice more on the possession. So, 13 days after Jason Garrett was in Jones’ ear, the Giants will likely have Freddie Kitchens in his second game as the de facto offensive coordinator calling plays for Glennon. Durability issues for Jones — renowned for his toughness by coaches and teammates — has made backup quarterback a more significant job than it ever was during Manning’s 15-year career with zero injury-related missed starts. Glennon is 6-21 in his career, including 0-5 during the Jaguars’ season-ending 15-game losing streak in 2020. He completed 16 of 25 passes for 196 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions (one returned for a touchdown) in relief of Jones during the Week 5 blowout loss to the Cowboys. Fromm was a fifth-round pick of the Bills in 2020 who served as the team’s emergency COVID-19 quarterback-in-isolation during his rookie season. He hasn’t played in a regular-season game and was the fourth-stringer in Buffalo, behind starter Josh Allen, backup Mitch Trubisky and former Giants draft pick Davis Webb, who made his own regular-season debut last month when Trubisky was sidelined. In the present, the Giants are at a disadvantage without Jones after winning three of their last five games to move into an eight-team logjam within one game of the final NFC playoff spot. Only one of their final six opponents is more than one game above .500. For the future, it’s bad timing when the main objective for the season — finding out if Jones is a franchise quarterback before determining whether to guarantee his contractual fifth-year option at about $21.3 million, according to overthecap.com — remains an unanswered mystery. Jones appeared to be turning a corner early in the season but is coming off his three lowest full-game passing yardage totals of the season and old ball-security issues (six interceptions and two fumbles lost in the last six games) have resurfaced. Garrett took the fall for the offense’s middling production but then the Giants managed just 13 points (after averaging 18.9 under Garrett) in the first game with Kitchens-Jones duo. For a scouting report on Fromm, the Giants could’ve turned to six other Georgia alums on the roster as well as a couple coaches who overlapped with his time leading the Bulldogs into the College Football Playoff championship game. He apologized last year after an old Tweet surfaced in which he wrote “only elite white people” should be able to purchase guns. Fromm is “very smart” and a “good teammate,” according to one player who shared the locker room. The Giants put cornerback Darnay Holmes, who had an interception Sunday and was playing well in the slot after an early-season benching, on injured reserve. He will miss at least three games with a rib injury
  13. John Mara and Steve Tisch have to answer for this Giants mess By PAT LEONARD NEW YORK DAILY NEWS | OCT 18, 2021 AT 6:39 PM This Giants season is on the verge of skidding off the rails. Wide receiver Kadarius Toney and left tackle Andrew Thomas both are likely to miss time with their injuries, the News has learned.Toney aggravated his right ankle injury and is being further evaluated, but sources have indicated it’s more serious than a simple sprain. Thomas now has injuries to both feet. In fact, he was hobbling to keep his injured left foot off the ground when his right ankle got rolled up on in Sunday’s blowout loss to the Rams.So now Matt Rhule, courted unsuccessfully by the Giants in January 2020, is bringing his wounded Carolina Panthers (3-3) to MetLife Stadium on Sunday looking for a get-right game against the Giants (1-5). Co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch are the ones who need to speak to the fans now, but they’re both politely declining to talk to the media. Judge was left to assure a disgusted, apathetic fanbase on Monday to trust in his process. “This is definitely gonna get better,” Judge said. “I can assure everyone out there who’s a Giants fan and wants to know when it’s gonna turn, we’re working tirelessly to make sure we get this thing turned in the right direction — not just for short-term results but for long-term success.” The fans have caught on, meanwhile, that firing coaches and general managers hasn’t addressed the root cause of this organization’s futility. The loud boos of Mara at halftime in Week 3 should have been a tipping point. The same goes for Eli Manning’s September admission that he retired in part because of “the losing,” the Giants’ interminable failures at the end of his career. “The losses hurt more,” Manning said days before his jersey retirement ceremony. “They affect your sleep. They affect your week. It affects family life with my wife and kids and it just got too much.” Judge wasn’t the coach then. First it was Ben McAdoo paired with GM Jerry Reese. Then it was Pat Shurmur. McAdoo and Reese took them to the playoffs in 2016. But both McAdoo and Shurmur, who had plenty of flaws as head coaches, ultimately got scapegoated for the organization’s reluctance to move on from Manning and start fresh. GM Dave Gettleman was simply the captain brought in to execute orders from the admiral, to use a naval analogy. He’s just the trigger man whose offensive line leaks like a capsized vessel four years after he promised to plug the holes. So now it’s Judge using submarine metaphors to try and keep his team together when the Giants’ real problem is ownership’s mismanagement and the team’s resulting lack of talent or depth on the roster. Gettleman and Judge are signing inside linebacker Benardrick McKinney, 28, to their practice squad, Judge confirmed in a Zoom audio call on Monday. Judge and Graham undoubtedly plan to play the Houston Texans’ 2018 Pro Bowler as soon as possible to address the vacuum left by Blake Martinez’s season-ending torn ACL. Judge is also holding his players’ feet to the fire for some less than acceptable effort that he saw in Sunday’s 38-11 defeat. “In terms of waiting for me to single out a player, I’m not gonna do that,” Judge said. “However the things I didn’t like in the second half or first half in that matter will go fully addressed to the team as a whole and independently.” There is a numbing quality to this year’s losing, however, with the Giants (19-51, .271) holding the NFL’s worst record and winning percentage since the start of the 2017 season. Mara and Tisch have forfeited the trust that they will get it right. They have to prove they can again. In that vein, it is important to heed Judge’s reminder that the Giants are striving “not just for short-term results but for long-term success.” This was supposed to be a complete rebuild, finally, beginning with Judge’s hiring in January 2020. Ownership’s decision to retain Gettleman was a jarring snap back to reality, however, that Mara and Tisch were folding Judge into the Giants’ program — refusing to completely acknowledge their way was broken and pivot totally to new ideas and thinking. Mara (right) and co-owner Steve Tisch should have never retained Gettleman (left). (David Richard/AP) There is no doubt Mara and Tisch put as much thought and heart into these decisions and into efforts to turn around their franchise as anyone. They care, and they’re trying. They’ve definitely evolved in some areas since Judge arrived. But they made the mistake of suddenly believing in the spring that it was time to win in 2021. They saw stadiums opening back up, they wanted to get fans back in the building, and they believed a weak NFC East presented an opportunity to strike. They abandoned the long-term for short-term gratification in the process, though, and by calculating their team’s potential incorrectly, they are now receiving more criticism for their losing than they would have if they’d patiently stuck to a long-term plan. And they may have also jeopardized the long-term rebuild with those attempts at quick fixes, like giving big money to Adoree’ Jackson at corner. He has made almost no impact at all. “It’s just one of those things that is frustrating trying to figure out how to get better and how to do better,” Jackson said of the whole defense’s disappointing season to date. Offensive tackle Nate Solder, who dislocated a finger in Sunday’s loss, said the players understand the fans’ booing — something that big-money defensive tackle Leonard Williams said “bother[s] me.” “We are not playing up to our standards,”Solder said. “We need to play better. We’re with the fans on that.” Judge said this week’s practice will determine who he plays and who he benches. “In terms of changes, the players that play it the right way, with the way we’re gonna play effort wise and competitive wise for 60 minutes, the players who are most productive, those will be the guys you’ll see on the field,” the head coach said. Judge isn’t making any play-calling changes with Graham or Jason Garrett. “At this moment, no,” he said. But it’s also fair to wonder whether that would even matter. The personnel on the field doesn’t measure up against good opponents. And that’s a byproduct of mismanagement from the top down.
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