Cleaning up the preseason, which was part of the NFL’s latest proposal to the NFL Players Association in regards to driving trying to play during the COVID-19 pandemic, is absolutely the right thing to do.
However, as always with any decision, there are winners and losers. Let’s take a look at some of those winners and losers, especially when it comes to their New York Giants.
Winner – Player Safety
Not having to travel through airports or on planes, not having to stay in hotels, not having to be in close contact with players, coaches and team personnel to play games that don’t count. Those are all good things that will decrease players’ chances of exposing themselves to the virus.
Oh, it also means that no key player will be lost to injuries in pointless games, either.
Loser – Joe Judge
I don’t like this one, but I think it’s the reality. Judge is a 38-year-old head coach for the first time, and while he will disagree, he has already lost a ton this offseason with the fact that he has not yet held a face-to-face meeting or practice on the field.
This is a brutal season in which to be a head coach for the first time, especially one with a young team that is not yet established. Not having preseason games will make Judge’s job even more difficult.
The coach told me a few weeks ago that he would do everything possible to establish competitive practice scenarios. That’s all well and good, but the handful of actual practices and the rules that will govern them will mean nothing of what he can do really match the conditions of the game.
That will affect his ability to get true and complete roster evaluations, as he and his coaching staff decide who to keep, who to cut and who to play.
There is another area where he could harm the Giants. Judge has never played a game at any level. This coaching staff, while full of experienced hands, has never worked a game together. There are all kinds of decisions that must be made quickly in a margin between plays or series. How will communication between coaches work? Who talks to the judge and when? What happens if plays are called in a timely manner or sub-packages are sent on and off the field? How about working a two-minute exercise or handling critical fourth quarter decisions?
Surely it would be nice if the Giants had at least a little preseason time to give Judge and his coaching staff a chance to solve that before a problem costs them in a game that counts.
Winner – Fans
Kind of. And I know you might disagree with me because even if it’s preseason games with no fans in the stands and at the bottom of the list, I know some of you would drool at the prospect of watching any kind of football as soon as possible. .
I look at it this way. Fans lose because they can’t attend games. But, no preseason game is a victory because when we get to the games that matter, teams should be healthier and put a better product on the field than if multiple players had been lost to COVID-19 or injuries impacting the season in games that didn’t count
Loser: NFL owners, television networks
No games, no money. It really is that simple.
Winner: veteran players
Veteran players, at least those who know they have starting jobs or will at least make the roster, have been in favor of fewer preseason games forever. Increasingly, top team players play less and less, often by no means, in preseason games.
We’ll go into specific players with the Giants in a moment, but the veterans will also be winners due to all the lost time the teams have already suffered. At a minimum, coaches want / need to know that the players they are putting on the field know how to do their job, even if perhaps their physical abilities have eroded a bit.
That means, in many cases, veterans who have already discovered the NFL and know their jobs will have an advantage over younger players who have yet to learn and prove their worth, both in competitions to start jobs and probably by the end of Reserve places on the list.
Knowledge, as they say, is power. In this case, veterans already have it.
Another area veterans could emerge as winners is with the proposed 2020 practice squad, if approved, which would allow teams to keep six veteran players of unlimited experience hidden in practice squads in the event of injury or illness.
Loser: Free agents not recruited
If veteran players are winners, then young players, especially those not selected, are losers. Those are the players who need spring replays to get the attention of position coaches, who need early boot camp reps to build a case for roster consideration, and who ultimately need snapshots of the preseason game to show the coaches they belong to, shoot for other teams, or gain valuable experience that will help them in the future if they do.
Now, let’s talk about some specific Giants players who are winners and losers in this scenario.
If veterans are winners and youths, untested or unselected players are losers, and former NFL center Brett Romberg and former NFL offensive line coach Paul Alexander are right to use an unproven center. it’s a recipe for disaster: Pulley has to be a winner.
He is the only true and experienced center on the current roster with four league seasons and 49 games played, including 26 starts.
Of course, if the Giants don’t sell at Pulley, the winner could end up being any veteran center the Giants pull out of free agency or the waiver cable to replace it.
Loser – Youth Centers
Nick Gates and Shane Lemieux have their supporters in what could have been an open competition for the center’s work. Maybe I’m wrong, but from all the people who understand offensive lineplay and the NFL better than I have been told, I ask these guys to be opening centers without even asking for a preseason snap on the job. something that is almost impossible
You could also include undrafted players Kyle Murphy and Tyler Haycraft.
Want to know who the Giants’ No. 4 wide receiver is, at least at the beginning of the season? Look no further than Coleman. He has an NFL record that includes at least some production as a receiver and as a returning man. He is still 26 years old. Experience is important at the moment, and beyond Darius Slayton, Golden Tate, and Sterling Shepard, he is truly the only receiver on the list with a significant amount.
Some of the myriad of other young wide receivers could eventually step up and gain playing time, but the assumption here is that Coleman has the inside track on the WR4 job.
No, the third-round team will not be in danger of not being on the list. The common theme when talking to someone about Peart is that he is a development player. The judge would say “in development”, but that is semantics. The point is, if all goes well, Peart will play very little during the 2020 regular season.
As a developing player and a guy the Giants would like to see as his starting right tackle in 2021, Peart could really have taken advantage of the preseason game reps to see exactly where he stands against NFL-level competition.
Winner: all backup QBs
Quarterbacks are always very important. If your boot falls off and you don’t have a competent backing, you will lose football games. During Eli Manning’s time, the Giants didn’t have to deal with it. Eli, however, left. Daniel Jones already missed two games last season, so we know that he, like other humans, is fallible.
The COVID-19 pandemic gives an even higher premium for quarterback stability. In a typical year, you would look at the Giants’ 90-man roster, see five quarterbacks and think it’s too much.
This year? With the pandemic making it possible for one or more of the Giants’ quarterbacks to waste time due to illness, and practice squads expand to allow half a dozen veterans of unlimited experience, I can easily see the five quarterbacks field.
How is this scenario? Jones, Colt McCoy, Cooper Rush make the initial list of 53 men. Both Alex Tanney, as a veteran who you want to activate as a backup due to injury or illness, and Case Cookus, as a development project, are part of the 16-man practice squad.
Loser – Rysen John … and probably others
I’m pointing to John, one of my favorite off-season stories, and a boy I’m supporting, like a boy who could be hurt by lack of preseason and practice time.
This is a boy from a Division II school in Canada, a bad DII team, turning from wide receiver to tight end AND trying to figure out if he really has the skills to compete against an NFL level competition.
His college coach admitted that the best setting for John is a place on the practice team while he learns for a year or two. However, the Giants have seven tight ends on their 90-man roster. If they’re going to keep one or two in the practice squad, Eric Tomlinson and Garrett Dickerson have some NFL experience, and undrafted Kyle Markway is an online tight end who already has a more NFL-ready skill set than John.
There are other young players who are likely to be lost in confusion. However, when I thought about the specifics of the Giants’ 90-man roster, John’s name came to mind.
