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[New York Giants]

Gunner Olszewski returns in series of Giants roster moves

Two days after cutting Gunner Olszewski to make room for waiver claims Rico Payton and Beau Brade, the New York Giants have re-signed Olszewski to their 53-man roster.

To make room for Olszewski, the Giants are placing Payton on injured reserve.

Placing Payton on IR is a move the Giants knew they would have to make when they claimed him on waivers from the New Orleans Saints. Payton is a second-year cornerback/special teams player GM Joe Schoen said on Wednesday the team was hoping to acquire a year ago. They want to develop him, think he can help them on special teams, and seem likely to bring him to the 53-man roster whenever he is healthy.

Olszewski won a competition with Ihmir Smith-Marsette to be a backup wide receiver as well as the Giants’ primary punt and kickoff returner.

Olszewski played 10 games for the team in 2023 and spent last season on injured reserve. He returned to the Giants early in training camp after Bryce Ford-Wheaton suffered a torn Achilles during practice and was placed on injured reserve. The highlight of his 2023 season was a 94-yard punt return for a touchdown against the Los Angeles Rams.

Practice squad moves​

The Giants signed linebacker Zaire Barnes and offensive lineman McClendon Curtis to their practice squad, and terminated the contract of edge defender Trace Ford.

Cutting Ford, an undrafted free agent who was impressive during the summer, could be considered a surprise.

Barnes, 6-foot-1 and 227 pounds, was waived by the New York Jets on Wednesday. The Jets selected him out of Western Michigan in the sixth round of the 2023 NFL Draft. Barnes appeared in four games as a rookie but missed all of 2024 with an ankle injury.

Curtis, 6-6 and 330 pounds, was released by the Arizona Cardinals on Monday. Undrafted out of Chattanooga in 2023, Curtis began his career with the Las Vegas Raiders, where he played under current Giants offensive line coach Carmen Bricillo. Curtis also spent time with the Seattle Seahawks, playing in five games for Seattle over the past two seasons. All of his snaps were played on special teams.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-yor...wski-returns-in-series-of-giants-roster-moves

 

[New York Giants]

Giants fans might not want to laugh too hard at the Micah Parsons trade

Kadarius Toney is announced as the New York Giants’ Round One pick in the 2021 NFL Draft

Schadenfreude is one of the most appealing of human emotions. I can’t say I’m immune to it. Fans and writers of the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Commanders are understandably gleeful over the Dallas Cowboys’ trade of Micah Parsons to Green Bay for two first round picks and defensive tackle Kenny Clark. Like the New York Giants, they won’t have to deal with Parsons twice every season, though all NFC East teams will see him once because they play Green Bay this year.

Giants fans, though, should be more circumspect about it than Eagles and Commanders fans. After all, four years ago the Giants were on the clock in the 2021 NFL Draft with Parsons still on the board at No. 11. He was there for the taking. Instead, then-GM Dave Gettleman traded down to No. 20. The haul of draft picks he got was considered admirable at the time, and as talented as Parsons obviously was, he played mostly off-ball linebacker in college, not considered a premium position, and there were character concerns as well.

Unfortunately, this is what the Giants got with those picks:

• No. 20: Kadarius Toney
• No. 164: Used in trade-up with Denver from No. 76 to No. 71 to draft Aaron Robinson
• 2022 first-round pick (No. 7): Evan Neal
• 2022 fourth-round pick (No. 112): Daniel Bellinger

Beyond that fiasco, the Giants have a pretty decent history of regrettable trades themselves. Here are a few:

1964: Sam Huff traded to Washington​

After three consecutive trips to the NFL Championship Game, the Giants traded future Hall of Fame linebacker Sam Huff to Washington for defensive back Dick James and defensive end Andy Stynchula. Huff had been reassured by Wellington Mara that he wouldn’t be traded. The Giants wound up going 2-10-2, the start of their 17-year “wilderness era” in which they made zero playoff appearances.

1972: Fran Tarkenton traded back to Minnesota​

When the Giants acquired Fran Tarkenton from Minnesota in 1967, it looked as if their wilderness era was going to be a short one. Tarkenton led them to consecutive 7-7 seasons, then 6-8, and then a 9-5 season in which they were eliminated from the playoffs on the last day of the season. After regressing to 4-10 in 1972, though, Tarkenton demanded a trade and was granted his wish. The Giants never did better than 6-10 until Phil Simms got them back to the playoffs in 1981, after Tarkenton’s replacement, Norm Snead, went 8-6 in 1972. Tarkenton took the Vikings to the Super Bowl in 1974, 1975, and 1977.

2018: Giants trade Jason Pierre-Paul to Tampa Bay​

One of the most fearsome pass rushers the Giants have ever had, Jason Pierre-Paul was traded by Gettleman to Tampa Bay after two-injury plagued seasons and a 2017 season which was good but less than several of his best. The Giants got a third-round pick that became defensive tackle B.J. Hill and a fourth-round pick swap that became quarterback Kyle Lauletta. Meanwhile, JPP returned to his early form and had three good seasons as a Buccaneer, including making the Pro Bowl in 2020. Hill was a good player with the Giants, so this wasn’t an awful outcome, but Gettleman later traded him for Billy Price, sealing the fate of the original trade and qualifying it for this list.

2019: Giants trade up for DeAndre Baker​

In 2019, Gettleman traded up into the first round after having already taken Daniel Jones and Dexter Lawrence. With the No. 30 pick he obtained, he selected cornerback Deandre Baker. Baker was a disaster on the field, showing little ability to stay with good receivers and no ability to intercept passes. He also got into trouble off the field, although all charges against him were ultimately dropped. He was gone after a single season. The Giants gave Seattle the Nos. 37, 132, and 142 picks in order to move up. The move was well-intentioned, because the Giants desperately needed help at cornerback, and a run on cornerbacks was expected near the bottom of the first round and top of the second. That run did, in fact, materialize, and none of the cornerbacks taken just after Baker lived up to their draft promise. Some have at least been useful players, though: Byron Murphy, Rock-Ya Sin, Sean Murphy-Bunting.

In truth, it will be a while before we know who won the Micah Parsons trade. For now, Green Bay is likely to be the winner, because it automatically makes them a serious Super Bowl contender. Whether things actually work out that way remains to be seen. In the long run, it’s possible that Dallas has the last laugh. Kenny Clark appears to be on the downside of his career, but he had nine sacks and 61 total pressures as recently as 2023.

More importantly, the two first-round picks Dallas got could bring them two great players. In 2019, Giants fans were not happy that Gettleman traded Odell Beckham Jr. to Cleveland for Jabrill Peppers plus first- and third-round picks. The Giants were ridiculed for the trade, e.g., by Bill Barnwell of ESPN:

Something dramatic and inexplicable needs to have happened in those 13 days to make this trade make sense because it otherwise reads as if the Giants were hacked. Months after paying him a $20 million signing bonus, they traded one of the league’s best young players at any position to the Browns for the sort of offer the computer would reject in a video game.

This has the potential to be a franchise-resetting trade, the sort of deal that gets everyone fired and leaves fans muttering for decades about what could have been. The Giants have never had a player like OBJ before. Now, they don’t have him — or much of anything — at all.

We know how that ended. OBJ had one elite season as a Brown and has been compromised by injuries ever since, not playing a single full season and never even reaching 600 yards in any season. Meanwhile, the Giants drafted a guy named Dexter Lawrence with the first-round pick they got in the trade (Oshane Ximines was the other player they got).

The Giants may even have learned their lesson by holding onto the No. 3 pick this year and using it on Parsons’ successor at Penn State, Abdul Carter, who looked in training camp as if he might have a Parsons-sized impact in the NFL. On the other hand, Joe Schoen repeated Gettleman’s move of trading back into the first round this year to get Jaxson Dart. He’s hoping it works out less like the trade-up Gettleman made for Baker and more like the trade-up Baltimore made in 2018 to get Lamar Jackson at the end of the first round. For now, though, Giants fans may want to stifle their giggles, remembering the team’s own somewhat sordid history of big draft trades.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-yor...-to-laugh-too-hard-at-the-micah-parsons-trade

 

[New York Giants]

Big Blue View mailbag: Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll, defining success for Giants, more

Jim asks: Going into the regular season everyone continues to tie the fate of GM Joe Schoen and HC Brian Daboll. My question is based on the quality of last years draft class and how this current draft class our GM seems to be doing his job pretty well. So if the team can’t win and it comes down to gameday execution that would land on Daboll not Schoen. Curious on your thoughts of uncoupling them based on how they are performing in their respective jobs.

Ed says: Jim, I know it might surprise some people but I really don’t think they are coupled at this point. Co-owner John Mara said a while ago that the GM and head coach have different jobs and can each be judged on their own.

If ownership thinks the talent on the roster is better than the results on the field I can see Schoen staying and Daboll going. I can see Schoen trying to support Daboll, but he isn’t going to lose his own job over whether Daboll stays or goes.

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Larry Bassell asks: Given that our DC Shane Bowen has had a few months to prepare for Washington and that he has seen a lot of tape on Daniels, how do you think he adjusts how we defend him this year vs. last year. If I recall, we were competitive in both games.

Ed says: Larry, the Giants have not spent the last six or seven months preparing for the Washington Commanders. When we ask Brian Daboll things like this, he says “we’re focused on us.”

Now, it is probably true that some of the bottom-rung guys on the Giants coaching staff have been watching and cutting up film of every team on the Giants schedule for months. That doesn’t mean Daboll has watched much of it. Or that Bowen has been focused on it. They have been focused on getting their team ready.

On Monday, Daboll said “We’ll get to Washington here in the next few days.” He said on Wednesday that the Giants would do some “Washington stuff.”

All of that said, it will be interesting to see how the Giants employ Abdul Carter. Could he spend some time “spying” Daniels? How will they pressure him and try to keep him in the pocket?

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Richard Girgenti asks: Long time reader! My question is more of an observation and wondering your opinion on it in regards to Jalin Hyatt. One thing I have noticed is every time he catches or attempts to catch a deep ball, he tends to do it while falling to the ground. That might be the way the ball is thrown, but I notice it more often than not, whereas other receivers attempt to catch the long ball in stride. Am I off on this? Is this an indication of something that should (and maybe is) being worked by coaches with him? Am I seeing this wrong or just incorrectly on this? Thoughts?

Ed says: Richard, I honestly don’t know if you are right or wrong on this. It’s not something that has ever jumped out or really occurred to me. What I will say is that even though he has gained weight, I think the contested catch remains on issue for Hyatt. Maybe that is some of what you are seeing.

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Bob Donnelly asks: Is the OLine fixed? If so, is it a temporary repair or will it carry over into 2026?

Ed says: Bob, no one should EVER consider the offensive line fixed. Or, any position for that matter.

Brian Daboll always says a couple of things that apply here. First, he says the NFL is a week-to-week league. From one week to the next, you never know exactly what you are going to get. Who is healthy? Which teams are playing well? Which teams are desperate for a win? Which teams are cruising? Which teams are on short weeks or exhausted by travel.

Daboll also says that every year is a new year. What happened last year or what the roster looked like a year ago doesn’t mean anything.

It is the same when you look ahead. The 2025 season hasn’t started yet. We think the offensive line will be OK in 2025, but we don’t know that. We think a lot of things, but none of it has been proven or disproven.

There is no way to know if Jon Runyan, Jermaine Eluemunor or John Michael Schmitz will be Giants next year. We don’t know yet if Evan Neal can be a good guard, or if he will be a Giant next year. Are we 100% certain Marcus Mbow can handle a starting job at right tackle tackle? Do we know if Andrew Thomas can stay healthy, or if the All-Pro version of Thomas still exists?

Let’s not talk about 2026 until we know something about 2025.

John Urbielewicz asks: Hate to see Elijah Chatman get waived. I’ve been a fan ever since he ran down a ball carrier 40 yards down field last preseason. As an undersized interior defensive lineman, unable to anchor against the run, would not he be better served playing defensive end? I think he has the speed and ability to set the edge.

Ed says: John, I hated to see Chatman dropped from the 53-man roster, as well. I was glad that the Giants brought him back to the practice squad. Maybe we will see him later this season.

As far as defensive end, I think I would trust the judgment of defensive coordinator Shane Bowen and defensive line coach Andre Patterson, one of the most success defensive line coaches in the business, on where to play him. I am not a scout, but I would think his height and length would be an issue trying to bend the edge against offensive tackles who are 6-foot-5 or so and 315-320 pounds. Guards, who may not be as athletic as tackles, seem like his best matchup. It’s just those double teams and all that traffic inside that cause him an issue.

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Ken Diamond asks: Where do you think Jaxson Dart would be drafted if, somehow, there was a re-draft now, after the preseason?

Ed says: In that alternate reality, I do wonder if the Cleveland Browns (DT Mason Graham at No. 5) or New York Jets (OL Armand Membou at No. 7) would take Dart.

I have to believe the New Orleans Saints (OL Kelvin Banks at No. 9) would love a do-over. They are starting Spencer Rattler over Tyler Shough, an admission that Shough may never be an NFL starting quarterback after seven years in college, and that can’t be how they wanted to begin Kelvin Moore’s tenure as their head coach.

By not taking Dart at No. 9 when they had the chance, and I know it would have been considered a reach at the time, they are basically throwing away a year.

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Phulmattie Budhram asks: Tough schedule aside, what might be the biggest roadblock in your opinion preventing this Giants team from being possible contender this season? What would you consider to be a “successful Giants football season”?

Ed says: Phulmattie, the schedule is the biggest roadblock. I hate to put numbers to what would be a successful season, but let’s do this.

Getting to the playoffs, or at least being in the hunt for a playoff spot, would absolutely be a successful season after going 3-14 in 2024. That said, I think you could also call it a successful season if the Giants win six or seven games — double what they won a year ago — get a few starts from Jaxson Dart, and come out of the year convinced he is their guy going forward.

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Jim Kadamus asks: I’ve read injury statistics from the NFL that 68% of players get injured in any given season. And 30-50% are injured enough to miss games.

Thinking about the frequency of injuries, has the NFL and players union considered raising the roster limit by 10% from 53 to 58 and then having a 12 man practice squad?

Maybe then the gyrations for players going from roster to practice squad and back on roster (for example the Olszewski vs. Smith-Marsette situation) could be minimized.

Ed says: Jim, I don’t think that is in the cards. Maybe a roster expansion could be negotiated in the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, especially if ownership demands an 18-game schedule. I don’t see it happening now, though.

Practice squads have been expanded to 16 players, and veteran players can now be included. IR rules have been loosened so that not all players who are placed on IR before Week 1 have to miss the entire season, and players who go on IR during the season can be designated to return. Two practice squad players can be elevated to the active roster each week.

There will always be roster gyrations. There will also be some type of limit, and some type of cap.

If I was NFL Commissioner for a day, the thing I would like to change is the 46-man game day roster. You have 53 players, so let 53 players be active on game day. If you have five guys injured who can’t play, elevate five guys from your practice squad and then be allowed to return them without having to pass them through waivers.

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John Kozel asks: Can you provide any details you know about the swapping of Korie Black for Rico Payton? If you claim a guy that causes you to make a player available you say you like and then put the new player on the injured list, it looks to me like a bad miscalculation. I’m assuming there is more and it’s not a gross mistake. Any insight?

Ed says: John, when teams set their “initial” 53-man rosters on cutdown day they know there will be changes. They kept seven cornerbacks, which is probably more than they actually wanted to go into Week 1 against the Commanders with. They did that because they liked Korie Black, as well as Art Green and Nic Jones, and hoped to keep them all.

I have said several times they claimed Rico Payton because he is a player they have coveted since last preseason. They knew he was injured and would need a couple of weeks. He has what I have seen reported as a back injury that will take a couple of weeks to heal. He will be eligible to return from IR after four games.

They believed Black would clear waivers, which he did, and then would re-sign to their practice squad. The Jets made Black an offer to join their practice squad and he accepted it. That qualifies as a surprise, but it is the player’s right.

As far as I know, the Ravens wanted Beau Brade to return to their practice squad and the Saints wanted Payton on their practice squad. The Giants didn’t let those things happen because they wanted those players.

I don’t see it as a miscalculation. Other teams have scouts, too. The Giants also hoped tight end Greg Dulcich would return to their practice squad, but he felt the opportunity was better for him with the Miami Dolphins.

Brian Misdom asks: What do you make of the giants decision to keep Gunner Olszewski over Ihmir Smith-Marsette? Is the upside at WR really that much of a differentiating factor when a slew of injuries would be needed to receive meaningful snaps?

I didn’t mind Gunner in 2023 but Ihmir proved a useful return player in 2024 without the fumbling issue that has plagued Gunner.

On pure return duties, thought Ihmir had the edge.

Ed says: Brian, this choice surprised me a little bit. I think the Giants saw the return job as a wash between the two, though my $.02 is that Smith-Marsette would be better on kickoffs. Based on what we saw in the summer, Olszewski is well ahead of Smith-Marsette as a receiver, and that might have been the deciding factor.

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Submit a question​

Have a Giants-related question? E-mail it to [email protected] and it might be featured in our weekly mailbag.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-yor...brian-daboll-defining-success-for-giants-more

 

[New York Giants]

6 keys to a successful New York Giants season

Will Russell Wilson and the Giants have things to celebrate this season?

The New York Giants are about to embark upon an interesting, entirely unpredictable 2025 season that could have profound implications for the long-term direction of a franchise that floundered since winning the 2011 Super Bowl.

Are the Giants a playoff team? Are they once again going to be a 3-14 team? Most likely, they will be something in-between those two extremes.

What will constitute success or failure? You probably have your own definitions of those things.

The Giants are better, maybe much better, on paper. They have an upgraded quarterback room with two veterans and a promising first-round pick. They have an upgraded defense that, if it plays to its potential, could be a top 10 unit. They have an exciting group of young players, mixed with some veteran leadership. They appear to have better depth in many spots than they have had in a while.

They also have a fourth-year GM/head coach combo under intense pressure to produce results after nearly losing their jobs due to going 9-25 over the 2023 and 2024 seasons.

What will it all add up to? Nobody knows. Until the games are played. Stay tuned as we all find out together.

What are the factors that will go into determining whether the Giants are successful this season or not? Reader Bob Donnelly sent a question to the Big Blue View Mailbag (which you can do by e-mailing [email protected]) recently asking me to list those factors. Bob wrote:

Be it finally playing to their draft position / contract, rebounding from or avoiding injury, or making a developmental leap much has been discussed about what is hoped for in the upcoming season.
In your view, what are the seven most important things – in order of importance – that the Giants need to come to fruition so that the team can realize its potential?

Well, Bob, I am a severe disappointment. As I turned this over and over in my mind I could only come up with six main categories or factors, each with a variety of tentacles sprouting inside them.

Let’s get to them.

Quarterback play​

The Giants have had one of the worst offenses in football for the past two seasons, 31st in points scored last season and 30th in 2023.

When Drew Lock threw for 309 yards and four touchdowns in a 45-33 Week 17 victory over the Indianapolis Colts, head coach Brian Daboll — renowned for his work as an offensive play caller before coming to the Giants — made his feelings on the primary reason the Giants were not a good offensive team crystal clear.

“That’s how the quarterback needs to perform,” Daboll said.

It is significant that the only major change the Giants made on offense this offseason was to revamp their quarterback room. Daboll and GM Joe Schoen are pushing their offensive chips to the middle of the table and making it obvious they believe the problem was Daniel Jones, and to a lesser extent the backups who replaced him over the past two seasons.

“It’s the most important position in football,” Schoen said of quarterback while in Indianapolis at the NFL Combine. “I do think the quarterback can elevate the roster.”

Jones, for all his hard work, could not. The Giants are counting on the belief that Russell Wilson, Jaxson Dart and Jameis Winston — to whatever extent each gets utilized in 2025 — can.

Wilson, at 37, isn’t the quarterback he used to be and may not be the starter for the duration of the season with Dart nipping at his heels. By almost any statistical metric, though, he has been better than Jones the past two seasons.

Wilson, still a premier deep-ball thrower, brings big-play ability. All three of the Giants’ quarterbacks are capable, and willing to throw the ball down the field. That is a major change for a Giants’ offense that has not created enough big plays.

Wilson has also brought leadership and, with a Super Bowl title and 10 Pro Bowl appearances on his resume, the cachet to help teammates learn what it takes to succeed.

“He’s [Wilson] an amazing, amazing person, amazing father. His family is amazing. He has the right people around him that keep him going,” said second-year wide receiver Malik Nabers. “He has a good process around him so if I can take anything, any lessons from him, just look at all the things he’s accomplished and doing those right things, I think it’s growing on me. I hope it grows on me just to do the right things.”

Veteran receiver Darius Slayton said the message from Wilson is “always encouragement” and that he is a “very positive person.”

Considering where the Giants have been in recent seasons, that positivity is a good thing to be around.

So, too, is it a good thing for the Giants — maybe the best thing — that Dart has looked like the real deal throughout the spring and summer.

Whenever Dart becomes the starting quarterback, he has provided the organization with optimism that they were right about trading up with the Houston Texans to select him No. 25 in the draft.

As for when Dart will play, the Giants have consistently said that Wilson is QB1 and are not committing to anything.

“The timeline will be the timeline however it works out,” Schoen said.

Winston, a former No. 1 overall pick who has become a journeyman, can be overlooked with Wilson as the starter and Dart as the future. Watch practices and listen to teammates talk about him, though, and you realize Winston is more than just a funny guy. He is that, but he is also a player who holds his teammates accountable and is a good influence on Dart.

All of that aside, the most important thing in the short term is wins and losses. The Giants went 1-8 in one-score games a season ago, and a look back shows that fourth-quarter quarterback play was a major difference in many of those games.

The Giants are betting their revamped quarterback room puts them in better position to win some of those games.

It’s a bet Schoen and Daboll need to win.

Health of key players​

On paper, the Giants have the most talented, deepest roster in Joe Schoen’s four years as general manager.

“I like the team, I like the chemistry, I like the leadership,” Schoen said recently. “We had a good training camp, we had a good spring, now we’re two weeks away and we have to go out and do it. Do I like the team? Yes. I like the chemistry, I feel like we’ve been executing, we’ve had good practice, the guys have done a good job through camp. It’s been really good competition and now it’s time to go out and do it.”

Better roster or not, some players are obviously more important than others. It will help the Giants “go out and do it” if the team’s best, most important players can stay on the field.

The Giants, somehow, always seem to be a team that suffers an alarming number of injuries, perennially among the leaders in games lost to injuries.

That has to change some time. Doesn’t it?

The biggest health question entering the season revolves around left tackle Andrew Thomas, the team’s best offensive lineman. His recovery from Lisfranc surgery has been painstakingly slow, and his medical issues this offseason were deeper than had been previously reported. The more healthy games the Giants get from Thomas the better chance they have of getting quality play from their offensive line.

Malik Nabers has dealt with toe, shoulder and back issues this offseason. Nabers said recently that despite all of that “When it’s game time with those lights on, I believe my body is going to turn it on.”

The Giants desperately need a healthy Nabers. Darius Slayton is a nice player and deserving team captain, but not a game-changing No. 1 wide receiver. Not close.

Graham Gano, the Giants’ 38-year-old placekicker, has missed 16 games over the past two seasons with leg injuries. The Giants have struggled to achieve consistent placekicking when Gano has been sidelined, and even when he was on the field his injuries caused him to be more inconsistent than usual.

Dexter Lawrence is, of course, irreplaceable.

Brian Burns, Paulson Adebo, Jevon Holland, Tyler Nubin, Abdul Carter, Theo Johnson and maybe even Slayton, are among players the Giants would have a difficult time replacing.

I am sure there are others. Feel free to drop names of players you think should be on this list into the comments.

The defense matching the hype​

The hype train regarding the potential of the Giants’ defense, especially the front seven, has been hurtling at warp speed since the Giants made former Penn State edge defender Abdul Carter the third overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.

Bucky Brooks of NFL.com ranked the Giants’ front seven as the best in the league. Sharp Football Analysis ranks the group No. 4. Pro Football Focus ranks the front seven No. 3.

Even second-year backup linebacker Darius Muasau is buying into the hype, saying during training camp that “I’d say we got the best D-line in the NFL right now.”

You get the idea. And, you knew this already. The group headlined by Dexter Lawrence, Brian Burns, Kayvon Thibodeaux and Carter is expected to DOMINATE.

This group, including linebackers Bobby Okereke and Micah McFadden, as well as defensive linemen Roy Robertson-Harris and Darius Alexander as primary players, cannot disappoint.

After being 31st in the NFL in scoring a season ago, the Giants’ offense can’t be expected to suddenly become a juggernaut. Hopefully, it becomes league average.

After co-owner John Mara expressed disappointment with the defense in January by saying “I’m tired of watching teams go up and down the field on us” Schoen poured a lot of offseason resources into changing that.

Carter and Alexander were drafted. Adebo, Holland, Robertson-Harris and Chauncey Golston were signed in free agency. Secondary coaches Jerome Henderson and Mike Trieir were replaced by Marquand Manuel and Jeff Burris.

It is the defense that is going to have to carry this team against a difficult schedule, keeping the Giants competitive, making game-changing plays, setting up the offense to make big plays and be opportunistic.

If it can’t, the Giants won’t be winning very many games.

The offensive line being at least adequate​

Before Thomas suffered his Lisfranc injury last season, beginning a never-ending whirlwind of injuries and inadequate performance that left the Giants shuffling, and shuffling, and shuffling the line some more in search of answers that never really came, the Giants’ offensive line was fine.

It wasn’t great, but it was fine. Thomas, Jon Runyan, John Michael Schmitz and Jermaine Eluemunor from left tackle across to right tackle were basically a league-average line.

The Giants would absolutely take league average play from that group.

The key, of course, will be Thomas’s health. If he can play the vast majority of the games, and play at a level close to his 2022 second-team All-Pro form, that would be a huge help. If he can’t, the free-agent signing of swing tackle James Hudson and the drafting of impressive rookie Marcus Mbow seem to have the Giants better positioned to withstand whatever time he is sidelined.

Runyan has played next to Hudson all spring and summer.

“I think bringing him in here was really important. He’s done a really good job. He has the versatility. When he was in Cleveland, he played left and right tackle, and he (brought) that here. He brings a different mindset,” Runyan said. “A good edge, physical player. Extremely twitchy as well. Fun playing (with) him. I played with him in college as well for a couple of years. Getting back to that with him, it’s just cool. Those moments when you grew up playing with someone, whether that was in high school or college. Now you guys are both living out your dream together and you share that together. It’s been really awesome playing next to him and feeling that connection we have. He’s been great. He’s been that kind of tone checker for us at tackle and he’s doing well.”

Runyan himself is healthy after playing all of 2024 with a separated shoulder, and needing tight rope surgery for a late-season ankle injury.

There are questions about Schmitz, but he did show improvement in 2024. Can he continue that in his third season?

Van Roten is a 35-year-old placeholder who will play until or unless Evan Neal takes his job. Eluemunor had an excellent season at right tackle in 2024, and Mbow or Hudson could step in there if necessary.

“We really want to be the heartbeat of this team and this offensive unit, both sides of the ball – offensive and defensive line,” Runyan said. “I think we’re one of the most veteran positions on this team. We’ve got a lot of great players, and I just feel like this offensive line unit has the chance of being one of the best in the league. I feel like we’ve been proving that to ourselves each day in training camp. We’re all really excited to get going coming up against Washington.”

Bono or Bozo?​

Brian Daboll won Coach of the Year honors in 2022. He earned that by cajoling the best year of his career out of quarterback Daniel Jones. He earned that by coaching a rag-tag team that had won four games in 2021, gotten Joe Judge and Dave Gettleman replaced, and had GM Joe Schoen looking for scraps of Duct tape anywhere he could uncover them to splice together a functional roster with no cap space and a front office filled with people he barely knew.

Co-owner John Mara proved prescient by saying after that award was bestowed upon Daboll that the coach needed to be careful not to go from Bono, the rock star, to Bozo, the clown.

Well, the Giants have gone 9-25 over the past two seasons.

Jones turned back into a pumpkin. Daboll’s magic touch disappeared. There were constant rumors of behind the scenes unhappiness among the coaching staff, which seemed to be borne out by the ugly dismissal of defensive coordinator Wink Martindale.

There were embarrassing blowout losses to start both the 2023 and 2024 seasons. There were some questionable roster and game day decisions that blew up on Daboll and the Giants. There was Daboll stripping offensive coordinator Mike Kafka, a sought-after offensive mind, of play-calling and then watching the Giants end up 31st in the 32-team NFL in points per game.

Not much went right the last two seasons.

Daboll went from a cigar-smoking hero of Giants fans to a cigar-smoking hack. Some fans were so distraught they were paying for planes to fly above MetLife Stadium begging John Mara to make changes.

Brian Daboll. Smoking cigars. Wearing jays. Winning games. pic.twitter.com/PwOvdup850

— Giants Daily (@NYGDaily) October 24, 2022

Bono to Bozo.

Can Daboll recapture the magic?

Jones is gone. There is a revamped quarterback room with good veterans and an exciting rookie. That has seemed to energize Daboll, and has finally given him a real chance to prove that his reputation for molding quarterbacks is deserved.

There is a roster that after four years now completely belongs to Daboll and Schoen. Daboll seems to love players with big personalities, players with ‘DAWG’ in them, and he has a lot of them. There is a coaching staff that has been remodeled over the past couple of offseasons. Kafka is again calling plays, leaving Daboll to focus on Dart and to be more easily involved in all aspects of the team.

Maybe, just maybe, that will lead to the return of Daboll the rock star. If Bozo rears his goofy head, he could get bounced.

A little luck​

It is impossible to deny that the Giants caught some breaks in 2022. Their formula was largely play mistake-free football, keep the game close, let the other team implode at the end, capitalize, win.

In Week 1 against the Tennessee Titans, Saquon Barkley went super-human to score a game-winning 2-point conversion and then Randy Bullock missed what would have been a game-winning 47-yard field goal on the final play.

Against the Baltimore Ravens, a team the Giants had no business beating, Lamar Jackson somehow imploded in the final three minutes, turning the ball over twice and gifting the Giants a victory.

They managed to beat the Commanders in Week 15, in no small part with some help from a no-call on what likely should have been defensive pass interference in the end zone on Darnay Holmes on a fourth-down play in the final minute.

The Giants are going to need some similar good fortune in 2025.

They have already gotten some, with the Dallas Cowboys trading away star defender Micah Parsons, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Giants Week 3 opponent, having wide receiver Rashee Rice suspended for the first six games, and the Washington Commanders being without starting right guard Sam Cosmi in Week 1.

The Giants will need some good bounces and will need to capitalize when some good team inevitably have off days.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-yor...6-keys-to-a-successful-new-york-giants-season

 

[New York Giants]

‘Alpha of alphas’: Giants’ Tyler Nubin says that is ‘who I am’

Alpha of alphas.

New York Giants assistant general manager Brandon Brown put that expectation on Tyler Nubin shortly after the Giants drafted the Minnesota Golden Gopher safety in Round 2 of the 2024 NFL Draft.

Brown was, to say the least, fired up that the Giants were able to snag Nubin with the 47th overall pick in the draft.

“Maybe some people said they wish he would have ran faster. When he came here for his physical, I gave him a big hug, and I was like, you know what, I feel like I got my favorite food on discount because the tape speaks for itself,” Brown said.

“So. I’m glad he’s here. When you meet him, he has one of those personalities where he can become like the alpha of alphas.”

“Alpha of alphas”, of course, meant that Brown was — and is — expecting that Nubin will one day become the leader of the Giants’ defense.

Right now, Dexter Lawrence is the unquestioned leader of the defense. He is, in fact, probably the leader of the football team. Lawrence, Bobby Okereke and Brian Burns were also voted as captains by Giants teammates.

Nubin may not yet be a captain. He does not run from the idea, though, that even in just his second season he is a leader. And that the organization expects his leadership role to grow.

“He’s [Brown] just talking about who I am. I can’t change who I am,” Nubin said. “I feel like I’m a natural born leader. I always have been. On every team that I’ve been on, eventually I find myself on a leadership role just because of how I go about my business.

“I’m not going to change anything. If that happens here at this level, that’s great. I go about my business to serve the world. I think other people recognize that. I don’t really have to think about it.“

Jevon Holland, signed as a free agent to start next to Nubin, has been impressed.

“Tyler’s a great communicator,” Holland daid. “He’s a great player. He’s fiery. He’s got all the attitude, all the spunk. I love playing next to Tyler. He does a great job.”

One thing Nubin wants to change in his second NFL season is the big fat zero in his interception column for 2024. After intercepting 13 passes and adding 11 passes defensed in 55 games at Minnesota, Nubin had no interceptions and just a single pass defensed in 13 games as a rookie.

“I feel like it’s [creating turnovers] always going to come with a learning curve,” Nubin said. “It’s going to come from college to the NFL. Being able to put myself in positions to actually make those plays, that’s what I’m learning to do this year.

“Obviously, the game is a lot different than college. Now I’m learning to put myself in those positions and when I do, I’m going to make the play.”

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-yor...phas-giants-tyler-nubin-says-that-is-who-i-am

 

[New York Giants]

Brian Daboll, in midseason form, stingy with roster, depth chart information

New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll played it close to the vest on Monday when asked about his depth chart for Sunday’s season-opening game against the Washington Commanders.

Daboll is undeniably is regular-season form when it comes to not doling out any useful information.

Who is the No. 2 quarterback? Jaxson Dart or Jameis Winston?

“Any roster decisions based on who’s going to be in the backup or who this player is going to be, we’ll have that out there on Sunday,” Daboll said.

The plan at the beginning of training camp appeared to be for the veteran Winston to be QB2, with Dart as the inactive, emergency quarterback.

Dart’s promising summer, though, make whether or not he should open the season as the primary backup for Russell Wilson a legitimate question.

Who will start at right guard or at CB2 opposite Paulson Adebo?

“We have a good idea of how we’re going to play,” Daboll said. “That’ll all come out on Sunday.”

At right guard, it would be a stunner if incumbent veteran Greg Van Roten is not the starter. The Giants still have hope for Evan Neal as a guard, but he did not appear to do enough this summer to warrant taking Van Roten’s job.

At cornerback, 2023 first-round pick Deonte Banks and 2022 third-round pick Cor’Dale Flott competed for that spot all spring and summer. Who won is still unclear. Either way, we probably see both players get snaps on Sunday vs. Washington.

Andrew Thomas’s status unclear​

Daboll, predictably, did not share any information on whether Andrew Thomas, who spent most of the summer on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list and has admitted his recovery from Lisfranc surgery has been difficult, would be available Week 1.

“We’re going to have a walkthrough today and everybody will be out there participating,” is all Daboll would say when asked about the veteran left tackle.

More than likely, with Thomas having gone through just one padded practice and admitting he is still not fully recovered, James Hudson will be the starting left tackle vs. the Commanders.

“He’s a guy I’m glad we signed. He’s done everything we’ve asked him to do, just like all the other guys have,” Daboll said. “Offensive line is five collective guys seeing it through the same set of eyes, or two tight ends, one tight end, whatever it may be. So those guys are doing everything they can do each day to be as productive as they can.”

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-yor...rm-stingy-with-roster-depth-chart-information

 

[New York Giants]

Can the Giants match the Commanders’ passing game?

Terry McLaurin beats Deonte Banks for a TD in last year’s Giants-Commanders game at MetLife

Last season the New York Giants played two competitive – but losing – games against the Washington Commanders. The Giants probably would have won the first one were it not for Graham Gano’s injury on the opening kickoff. The Commanders had the better of the play in their second meeting, although the Giants closed the gap at the end. On the basis of those two games alone you’d never have guessed that one team would finish 3-14 and the other 12-5 plus a trip to the NFC Championship Game.

Neither team’s defense was anything to write home about last season, with the Giants giving up 415 points and the Commanders 391. The difference was (unsurprisingly, if you watched the Giants last year) on offense, where Washington scored 485 points to the Giants’ 273, second lowest in the NFL. That’s a large gap to close if the Giants are to have any chance of winning this Sunday.

The Commanders’ running game (third-highest yardage total in the league) exploited the Giants’ sixth-worst run defense twice, but especially in their first meeting. The big contrast, though, was in quarterback play. Jayden Daniels had a remarkable rookie season. Part of it was his running ability – his 891 rushing yards were second only to Lamar Jackson among NFL quarterbacks. He had a strong season passing as well, though. Not in raw numbers – his 3,568 passing yards were only 16th among NFL quarterbacks. His 25 TDs tied for 10th in the NFL, though, and he added six rushing TDs.

The Giants’ defense will have to deal with that in some way. Daniels was sacked 47 times last year, sixth most among NFL quarterbacks, so the hopefully fearsome Giants pass rush may play a role in the outcome. Still, sometimes you have to fight fire with fire rather than dousing the fire with a hose, and the Giants’ best hope for victory is for their slumbering 2024 offense to be awakened by Russell Wilson and go toe-to-toe with Washington’s.

Here are the somewhat remarkable statistics for the Giants’ and Commanders’ wide receivers. last season:

Malik Nabers had more receptions and yards, plus a higher PFF receiving grade, than the Commanders’ newly re-signed Terry McLaurin. McLaurin, though, scored 13 TDs, second only to Ja’Marr Chase among wide receivers. In that regard, McLaurin’s season was an outlier in his career:

McLaurin has been remarkably consistent in his career, but he never had more than 7 TDs in a season until 2024. It’s not that he played any better last season than in previous years. Here are ESPN Analytics tracking metrics for his career. ESPN uses NFL Next Gen Stats to track how well receivers get open, how well they catch passes thrown to them, and how many yards after catch they get. The results are reported as percentile rankings among all wide receivers with at least 30 targets. Here are McLaurin’s season-by -season percentile rankings:

Overall, McLaurin’s 2024 was only in the mid-range of NFL receivers (48th percentile). He was actually not open that often relative to other wide receivers (38th percentile), and in all three tracking categories his 2024 rankings were lower than in most of his previous seasons.

Yet he scored more TDs than any other receiver except Ja’Marr Chase. That’s because his quarterback was doing things like this on third-and-7 with the game on the line:

Jayden Daniels airing out this Bengals defense with a double move 27 yard TD to Terry McLaurin

Just call him Santa Claus because he is handing off gifts @JayD__5 pic.twitter.com/hBz5avflj7

— Robert Griffin III (@RGIII) September 24, 2024

While Daniels was playing Santa Claus, Giants’ quarterbacks were the Grinch who stole Christmas, forcing Nabers to work overtime for his TDs:

Malik Nabers scored on these plays pic.twitter.com/z6X5U3Ngev

— Doug Analytics (@Doug_Analytics) December 30, 2024

Nabers was sixth among NFL wide receivers overall, and tied for first in getting open:

It’s amazing that he was only middle of the pack (42nd percentile) in YAC for the season considering plays like the two pictured above in which he did all the work to score. And that’s why there is some hope for Sunday with Russell Wilson at the helm for the Giants. Wilson did this with the game on the line against Washington last season:

RUSSELL WILSON TO MIKE WILLIAMS! @STEELERS LEAD!

: #PITvsWAS on CBS/Paramount+
: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/zM3oWDIj95

— NFL (@NFL) November 10, 2024

An almost identical situation to the one in which Daniels hit McLaurin for the winning TD in Cincinnati last season. McLaurin’s 13.9 yard ADOT was much higher than Nabers’ 9.9. Compare that to Nabers’ final season at LSU, when his ADOT was 12.2. We know who was throwing him the ball that year.

Interestingly, according to PFF, Wilson and Daniels had exactly the same number of “big-time throws” (20) last season, although Wilson got his in 391 dropbacks vs. Daniels’ 605.

Here are McLaurin’s route statistics last season, from Reception Perception:

McLaurin lined up wide on 944 of his 1126 snaps, and 822 of those 944 on the offense’s left side, last season, per PFF. He preferentially ran intermediate and deep routes and was very successful doing so, as indicated by all the green in the figure on the right. The very strong left side preference was a feature of Kliff Kingsbury’s offense. That’s an interesting aspect of Sunday’s game. Paulson Adebo, the Giants’ new CB1, played 596 of 712 snaps in 2024 on the defense’s left side – the opposite side from where McLaurin usually lines up.

Adebo did have three games last season in which he lined up roughly equally often on both sides, so it will be interesting to see whether Shane Bowen has Adebo follow McLaurin most of the time or not. If not, then it will be another battle between McLaurin and Deonte Banks. Banks played McLaurin fairly well in their first matchup last season, holding him to 2 catches in 4 targets for 20 yards, but in the second game, McLaurin beat Banks for 2 TDs. The first was a short quick hit over the middle in which Banks had to move through a pick that slightly affected him; that was a tough play to stop. The second was another short pass in which Banks reacted slowly to McLaurin’s move to get open and then showed his “signature” failure to get his hand up to contest the catch:

The last time the Commanders played the Giants, Terry McLaurin had two receiving TDs

How many will he record in Week 1? pic.twitter.com/IeLPplGmze

— brandon (@JayDanielsMVP) September 1, 2025

Of course we don’t even know as of this writing whether Banks is CB2 or whether Cor’Dale Flott (who did not cover McLaurin on any targets in last year’s games) has won that job.

McLaurin had more trouble (in a relative sense) getting open against zone defense (28th percentile among WRs) than against man defense last season, which may work to the Giants’ advantage given Shane Bowen’s tendency to play more zone than Wink Martindale did. Banks has a reputation as a better man corner than a zone corner, but last year his PFF coverage grade was a terrible 33.4 when in man (4 TDs, 136.7 passer rating in 32 targets) and a better 62.0 in zone (1 TD, 108.3 passer rating in 35 targets).

I don’t want to suggest that Wilson-to-Nabers vs. Daniels-to-McLaurin is the only key to victory on Sunday. The Commanders added Deebo Samuel during the off-season to be WR2. Samuel gave the Giants’ defenders fits when they played in San Francisco in 2023, mostly because they couldn’t tackle him. Samuel is not the receiver he once was, though. Here are his tracking metrics:

Deebo’s thing was never getting open and catching the ball – it was always the damage he did (to defenders’ bodies as well as the scoreboard) once he caught the ball. That aspect of Samuel is still there – his 74th percentile YAC is still up there though lower than young Deebo’s was. His getting open and catching the ball have declined, though.

Deebo has distinct preferences as a wide receiver, especially at this point in his career. He runs shallow routes more than most wide receivers, and has more success with them than most receivers:

Samuel lined up 28% of the time in the slot last season with San Francisco. He only played 4 pre-season snaps this year. all of them in the slot. It will be interesting to see how much Kingsbury utilizes him in the slot, and when he does, whether Giant’s slot cornerback Andru Phillips, a ferocious tackler but a player who concedes about 30 pounds to Samuel, does against him. Just the opposite of McLaurin, Samuel’s success rate against zone (76%) is much higher than against man (40%).

For the Giants, we shouldn’t forget about Darius Slayton:

There was a time long ago, when Daniel Jones was a rookie (2019) and wasn’t afraid to throw downfield to his fellow rookie, that Slayton was in the 61st percentile of NFL receivers. Then Joe Judge and Jason Garrett put Jones in bubble wrap and Slayton declined in 2020 and especially 2021 (half of which Slayton spent with Mike Glennon and Jake Fromm throwing to him after Jones’ neck injury). He made a comeback in 2022 in the Brian Daboll-Mike Kafka offense, and even in 2023, when Tyrod Taylor wasn’t afraid to throw deep to him. Last year, though, he was a forgotten man in the offense with the Giants’ quarterback carousel. Look at how his TDs have declined:

Slayton went from 8 TDs as a rookie to only 13 over his next five seasons combined. Clue: It had little to do with him. Slayton nonetheless has a career 13.5 ADOT. Memo to Russell Wilson: Crank up the moon balls on Sunday.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-yor...-the-giants-match-the-commanders-passing-game

 

[New York Giants]

Giants CB Dru Phillips confident ahead of Week 1: ‘We have a damn good defense’

The New York Giants’ defense has been hyped all offseason, and cornerback Dru Phillips is more than ready to prove the buzz is real.

Phillips, the Giants’ second-year slot corner, spoke with reporters ahead of Week 1 as Big Blue prepares to open the season against the Washington Commanders in Landover, Md. The matchup pits them against quarterback Jayden Daniels, who powered Washington to an NFC Championship Game appearance last year.

For Phillips, it’s the perfect test.

“We wouldn’t want it any other way, especially after the year they had last year, and we’re coming in with a new team as well,” Phillips said. “You’re going to find out real fast, but we’re excited. We wouldn’t want any other competition, especially a division rival.”

The Giants dropped both games to Washington in 2024, but neither loss was a blowout. Now, with added depth on defense, New York feels it’s better equipped to handle Daniels’ dual-threat ability.

“Last year’s tape was last year’s tape,” Phillips said. “That’s in the past. It’s a new year, we’re trying new ways, do whatever we can. I’m not sure what the guys on the D-line are doing, but it’s a new year, trying to do some new plans to try to get at him.”

Washington, meanwhile, has new weapons, including wide receiver Deebo Samuel. But Phillips isn’t stressing over what might be coming.

“You know who Deebo is. He’s been a great player throughout the years,” he said. “In Washington’s offense, you’re not sure. It’ll be something we can kind of assume, but you won’t know until we go play him.”

As for the Giants’ secondary, Phillips has high expectations no matter who’s lining up beside him—Deonte Banks or Cor’Dale Flott.

“Whoever’s out there, it doesn’t matter,” Phillips said. “We have a really good secondary in my opinion. From what we have on paper and what we’ve shown in practice, we can do a lot and we’re just trying to do the best that we can each and every day.”

Asked to evaluate the Giants’ defense as a whole, Phillips didn’t hold back.

“A lot,” he said with a grin. “I’m not going to just put numbers out there, but we have a damn good defense, so I’m ready to go show it.”

The Giants’ first chance to prove it comes Sunday in Washington.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-yor...t-ahead-of-week-1-we-have-a-damn-good-defense

 

[New York Giants]

Giants-Commanders Wednesday injury report: Andrew Thomas ‘improving’

The status of New York Giants star left tackle Andrew Thomas for Sunday’s season-opening game against the Washington Commanders remains murky.

The Giants practiced in full pads on Wednesday, with head coach Brian Daboll saying “everybody will be out there” before he headed to practice.

That included Thomas, who was on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list until shortly before the preseason finale as he continues to recover from Lisfranc surgery for an injury that cost him the final 11 games of the 2024 season.

“Each day he is improving,” Daboll said of Thomas.

The 2022 second-team All-Pro admitted recently that it has been “a tough recovery.”

“I’ve talked to different doctors, different surgeons that have different opinions. I think part of it, coming back from an injury like this, there will be some soreness that you have to manage and get through,” Thomas said. “My biggest concern is making sure I can’t make it worse or re-injure it, so I’m just trying to take my time, stick with the plan that they’re giving me, and see where it goes.

“It’s just a tough injury for heavier guys.”

If Thomas can’t play, James Hudson would start at left tackle for the Giants.

Full injury statuses will be added when they are made available.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-yor...dnesday-injury-report-andrew-thomas-improving

 

[New York Giants]

New York Giants work out group of defensive backs

The New York Giants worked out a handful of defensive backs this week, according to the league’s transactions wire.

Working out for the Giants were:

• Shemar Bartholomew
• Brandon Crossley
• M.J. Devonshire
• Keenan Garber
• Keith Taylor

Taylor is a four-year veteran who spent two seasons with the Carolina Panthers and then two with the Kansas City Chiefs. The 6-foot-3, 195-pound 26-year-old has played in 45 NFL regular season games with five starts, all of which came for the Panthers.

Crossley is an undrafted free agent rookie who initially made the New England Patriots practice squad, but was released.

Devonshire, out of Pitt, was a 2024 seventh-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft by the Las Vegas Raiders. He was released in final cuts and spent the season on the practice squad. He was released at season’s end. This year, he has spent time with the Carolina Panthers and Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens released him at the end of the preseason.

Garber, out of Kansas State, signed with the Minnesota Vikings as an undrafted free agent following the 2025 draft. He was released at the end of the preseason.

Bartholomew, 25, played five games for the Carolina Panthers last season after making the 53-man roster. He was released at the end of the preseason.

Roster move​

The Giants waived/injured undrafted free agent Jermaine Terry from their practice squad.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-yor...york-giants-work-out-group-of-defensive-backs

 

[New York Giants]

What an inflated Edge market means for Kayvon Thibodeaux

The New York Giants picked up Kayvon Thibodeaux’s fifth-year option in May — a wise move to keep the 24-year-old pass rusher under contract through the 2026 season. Thibodeaux is set to make $14.8 million in 2026.

Since selecting Thibodeaux fifth overall in 2022, the Giants have made heavy investments in his position group. They traded for Brian Burns and selected Abdul Carter third overall; Burns is currently entering his second year of a five-year, $141 million contract ($28.2 million AAV), with $87.5 million guaranteed.

Joe Schoen did an excellent job locating an available 25-year-old pass rusher with 60+ pressure upside, and promptly paying him for half a decade at the expense of just a second-round pick with a fifth-pick swap. Burns is now a team captain. New York offered that contract to Burns a year and a half ago, and he’s currently the ninth-highest-paid EDGE rusher, per average annual value.

Since the Burns’ deal, several top EDGE rushers in the league have received massive paydays. The Cleveland Browns gave 30-year-old Myles Garrett a four-year, $160 million contract extension this offseason ($40-million AAV), which made him — at the time — the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history.

The Micah Parsons trade to Green Bay secured that honor from Garrett; the Packers gave Parsons a four-year, $186-million contract ($46.5 million AAV). Green Bay applied several option bonuses throughout Parsons’ contract to make it more affordable. Still, it’s a massive commitment and amount of money.

Of course, top market players like Garrett and Parsons are likely to receive enormous contracts — that’s not very surprising or overly concerning when discussing Thibodeaux’s future with the Giants. However, other players in the EDGE market are now receiving large contracts that will rightfully act as a baseline in future negotiations for Thibodeaux and his team.

The Denver Broncos extended pass rusher Nik Bonitto on a four-year, $120 million deal with $70 million guaranteed; this is less guaranteed money, but more AAV than Brian Burns ($30 million AAV for Bonitto).

Bonitto recorded 57 pressures in 2024 (18th most of EDGE rushers, per Pro Football Focus) with 13.5 sakcs and 16 tackles for a loss. It was a Pro Bowl, All-Pro season for Bonitto. However, Bonitto is a pass-rushing specialist who ranked 104th of 211 eligible EDGE rushers, per PFF.

Both entered the league in 2022, but Bonitto had a true break-out season on a playoff team. Thibodeaux had two consecutive seasons of 44 pressures that were followed up by a 38-pressure season last year (one where he only played 12 games). Thibodeaux is currently only two sacks behind Bonitto for his career, and the Giant has 40+ more total tackles.

Playing next to Dexter Lawrence, Brian Burns, and Abdul Carter will give Thibodeaux plenty of opportunity to earn more statistics and drive his value on the market upward.

The Giants are now in a position where the Bonitto contract will be the baseline of Thibodeaux’s deal. The Giants have Jaxson Dart on a rookie deal for the foreseeable future, which gives them plenty of cap flexibility, but Burns is under contract through the 2028 season, and Malik Nabers is eligible for an extension after the 2026 season.

Will the Giants be in a position to pay Thibodeaux? Should they even pay him? New York has seen way too many talented players walk out the door after their rookie contracts expired: Saquon Barkley, Xavier McKinney, Julian Love, Evan Engram, etc. But will Thibodeaux do enough on the field to warrant a second contract from the Giants, or will the presence of Abdul Carter force Thibodeaux to explore the market?

Tough decisions await Joe Schoen and the Giants, but the team has found itself in a healthier cap situation than in previous seasons, especially after the Giants restructured Andrew Thomas’ deal to free up $12.2 million in cap space. New York can still do this same thing with Dexter Lawrence.

Kayvon Thibodeaux has a crucial year ahead of him. He can earn a lot of money with statistical success on the football field. But will that money come from the pockets of the Giants’ owners? That remains to be seen.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/134768/what-an-inflated-edge-market-means-for-kayvon-thibodeaux

 

[New York Giants]

OC Mike Kafka will call plays for Giants

Mike Kafka and Brian Daboll

New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll finally admitted on Thursday what has been obvious since OTAs began in the spring — offensive coordinator Mike Kafka will resume play-calling duties this season.

Daboll confirmed as much during a brief session with media. Kafka, in his fourth season as the team’s offensive coordinator, was the play-caller during the 2022 and 2023 seasons. Daboll assumed that responsibility last season after the Giants went 6-11 in 2023 and finished 30th in the NFL in points scored.

It didn’t help.

The Giants went 3-14 last season and were 31st in the league in points scored.

Kafka has been calling the offensive plays since the spring. Daboll has spent considerable time with rookie Jaxson Dart, and has used his freedom from play-calling to also spend more time with all of the position groups.

Kafka tried not to make much of the change when he spoke to media on Thursday.

“I haven’t really had a whole bunch of time to think about that,” Kafka said. “I’ve just been thinking about the players, thinking about the guys and how we can make them great, thinking about our coaches and the coaching staff and how I can help them and be a servant to them, how we can make this organization better and how I can make our offense better. That’s really been my focus. Then, you know, obviously all hands on deck for Washington this week.”

Kafka, 38, has had interviews for head-coaching vacancies each offseason since becoming Giants’ offensive coordinator in 2022.

“Mike’s done a great job this preseason,” Daboll said on Wednesday. “He’s done a good job with the staff. Got a lot of confidence in Mike and the offensive staff. Up to this point, relative to all the preseason games and the meetings we’ve had, I’ve been very pleased with the offensive staff.”

In 2022 and 2023, Kafka called plays from the press box high above the field. He called plays from the sideline in preseason, and will continue doing so during the regular season.

“The difference is it’s definitely quieter up there [in the press box], and you can see the field a lot, like the width of it. You see everybody,” Kafka said. “When you are down on the field, you trust the eyes upstairs to make sure you say, Hey, check out the back side corner on this play, check out what the safety is doing. You can verify via the pictures and stuff like that, but you know, it’s just probably more dialogue upstairs saying, Hey, check this out, my eyes are over here, your eyes are over there. Just the communication with the staff is probably a little bit quicker, because they’re working to do their job. They have their substitutions. They have their players, their guys. Who is on the field? Who is off the field? That needs to happen a little bit quicker. But there is a certain element of having the guys right there next to you and being able to just communicate with them quicker.

“I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer,” to whether it’s better to be on the field or in the press box.

“It was good to be on the sideline,” Kafka said. “It’s always fun to be right there with the players and see it eye-to-eye and communicate with them more directly. You can do certain elements of that up in the box, but there’s really no substitute for being on the field.”

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-york-giants-news/134796/oc-mike-kafka-will-call-plays-for-giants

 

[New York Giants]

Giants-Commanders: What to expect when Washington has the football

The New York Giants were swept by the Washington Commanders last season. The Giants’ NFC East rival went on to lose in the NFC Championship game to the Philadelphia Eagles, while New York toiled in turmoil en route to a three-win season.

The Giants’ Week 2 loss was further marred by New York’s decision not to promote practice squad kicker Jude McAtamney, as 37-year-old Graham Gano dealt with an injury. Gano was hurt on the opening kickoff, and the Commanders kicked seven field goals to win 21-18.

Shane Bowen’s defense struggled, despite holding the Commanders to zero touchdowns. I detail it in this video:

The Commanders defeated the Giants in Week 9, 27-22. Wide receiver Terry McLaurin had two touchdowns on two catches, and New York fell to 2-7 on the season. Daniel Jones would be benched two games later.

Thankfully, the 2024 season is over. The Giants’ defense added valuable pieces that should help New York defend Kliff Kingsbury and Jayden Daniels. However, Washington added pieces as well:

Washington’s offensive additions​

The Commanders traded for left tackle Laremy Tunsil (Texans) and wide receiver Deebo Samuel (49ers). The former is an elite upgrade and the latter fits in well with offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury’s horizontal attack. After a contract dispute, Terry McLaurin has returned to the team and is ready for Week 1.

Washington also drafted Oregon offensive tackle Josh Conerly Jr. in the first round, wide receiver Jaylin Lane (Virginia Tech) in the fourth, and Jacory Croskey-Merritt (Arizona/New Mexico) in the seventh round; Croskey-Merritt — who goes by “Bill” — will work in a running back by committee with Chris Rodriguez Jr. and Austin Ekeler, after the Commanders sent Brian Robinson Jr. to the San Fransciso 49ers in another trade (not related to Samuel).

Unfortunately for Washington, its impressive starting right guard, Sam Cosmi, is still recovering from a torn ACL, so veteran Nick Allegretti is expected to receive the start.

Giants’ defensive additions​

New York sought to improve its defense through the draft and free agency. They added safety Jevon Holland, cornerback Paulson Adebo, and several depth defensive line pieces in March during free agency. Then they spent the number three overall pick in the draft on Penn State pass rusher Abdul Carter. The former Nittany Lion joins Brian Burns, Dexter Lawrence, and Kayvon Thibodeaux as one of the most fearsome foursomes in the NFL.

Still, as Brian Burns has made clear, the Giants have not proven anything, and being good on paper isn’t worth the paper; it must translate to the football field. New York also added defensive lineman Darius Alexander in the third round, but the rookie had a slow start to minicamp and training camp. It’s unclear how many reps he’ll receive in Week 1.

Giants vs. Commanders​

The Commanders’ offense averaged 28.5 points per game last season, ranking them fifth in the NFL. They had a +94 point differential, and they were the number one scrambling offense in the NFL; Jayden Daniels rushed for over 600 yards scrambling, alone, which was a problem for the Giants.

Here are the NFL Pro’s matchup comparisons by the numbers from the 2024 teams:

But, as previously noted, the Giants bolstered their defense, and the team benefits from having another year in Shane Bowen’s system.

Kingsbury abused Bowen’s secondary depth in Week 2, and I expect a similar approach against the Giants to start the 2025 season. The Giants’ defensive strength is by far their pass rush, so it behooves Kingsbury to avoid situations where Daniels is holding onto the football.

I expect a heavy RPO and quick horizontal passing attack with a healthy dose of the running back by committee on the deck to temper Dexter Lawrence, Burns, Carter and Kayvon Thibodeaux. Washington was almost even in 2024, with 3×1 and 2×2 usage, and often worked with 11 personnel (62% of the time).

The Giants will likely employ a lot of nickel, and they’ll have their hands full with the talents of Jayden Daniels. I do expect the Giants to use Abdul Carter as a spy, but that will only be situationally; Carter’s ability to get after the quarterback from every angle should be his primary usage. With that said, New York MUST watch out for Daniels’ legs, as they attempted to do in Week 9 but failed to execute upon in Week 2.

Kingsbury has a successful rushing attack. Most of their runs are out of shotgun or pistol with a mesh-point to keep backside defenders honest. There’s also a lot of movement and misdirection on the offensive line and PONY (two running back) formations to further confusion. Kingsbury should use the ground game to slow down the Giants’ pass rush and to out-possess New York; that’s why an early lead from the Giants’ offense would severely assist the Giants’ defense.

I expect a heavy dosage of Samuel as the No. 2 (inner) receiver, or the No. 3 in 3×1 sets, to be used on bubble screens to facilitate yardage to keep Washington ahead of the sticks. The Giants’ secondary defenders — their linebackers, safeties, and Dru Phillips — must be efficient tacklers; this may be the defining feature of the game.

Suppose Washington employs a quick passing attack against off-leverage defenses, with a sound ground game, and the Giants miss their makeable tackles. In that case, Washington will be in a prime position to tire out the defense and secure a win. Avoiding third and long situations, or other obvious passing circumstances, depending on game script, is crucial for Washington.

Now, the Giants have a challenging task ahead of them. New York may opt to run more middle-of-the-field closed formations with an extra defender in the box to account for Daniels’ dynamic rushing ability. If that’s the case, Paulson Adebo and either Tae Banks or Cor’Dale Flott will receive one-on-one matchups, and they must win some of these 50-50 balls to force second or third and long, depending on when Kingsbury dials up those shots.

Also, if the middle-of-the-field closed looks are zone (Cover 3), then the curl-flat defenders will have ground to cover, and Daniels/Kingsbury will attempt to exploit that space to the field side. Safeties that are rolled down and Phillips could be difference makers for the Giants’ defense in these situations.

The chess match between Bowen and Kingsbury should be excellent to watch, and the former has a tall task ahead of him. Stopping Jayden Daniels was rarely achieved last season by those who occupy the same job as Bowen.

Still, the Giants had this game circled for months. Shane Bowen understands what it’s like to play against Daniels and has plenty of tape on the talented second-year professional. Now it is up to Bowen to devise a plan to slow down the quarterback, and it’s up to the Giants players to execute.

Final thoughts​

The Giants are 7.5-point road dogs in this 45.5 over/under (Draftkings). Other sites are a bit more favorable to the Giants, but predicting an upset is still bold. I can see an upset transpire, though. New York has upgraded its defense, and its offense is led by a future Hall of Famer, with another play caller joining Brian Daboll. It’s within the realm of possibility for the Giants to earn a win on the road against a team that’s faced slight turmoil during the off-season (Terry McLaurin contract situation, Brian Robinson trade). Still, as Burns and many other Giant veterans have stated throughout the offseason, nothing matters until they prove they can win.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-yor...at-to-expect-when-washington-has-the-football

 

[New York Giants]

Friday Night Football – Chargers vs. Chiefs: How to watch, game time, TV channel, streaming

Good evening New York Giants fans!

The NFL is, apparently, going back to high school with a Friday under the lights. That’s right, we’re getting a Friday Night football game between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Kansas City Chiefs.

One little twist though, this game is in Brazil, so not exactly your normal Friday night high school game.

The Chiefs are looking to redeem themselves after failing to execute the three-peat and falling to the Eagles in the Super Bowl. The Chargers, meanwhile, want to start the season off on the right foot and deliver a loss to their division rivals.

The Chiefs will be back to full strength on the offensive line after having to field a reshuffled line in the playoffs. Their skill positions, however, are once again hurting and will leave Patrick Mahomes to pick up the slack. Wide receiver Rashee Rice will miss the first six games of the season, while Jalen Royals is out with an injury.

The Chargers, meanwhile have significant concerns on their offensive line. Pro Bowl tackle Rashawn Slater was lost for the season after suffering a torn patellar tendon in practice on August 7th, forcing second year tackle Joe Alt to switch sides. Potentially making matters worse, free agent guard Mekhi Becton was added to the injury report Friday with an “illness” and is questionable to play.

The Giants will be playing each of these teams in short order. They’ll be taking on the Chiefs in their Week 3 home opener on Sunday Night Football (9/21), and then hosting the Chargers in Week 4.

What: Chargers vs. Chiefs
When: Friday, Sept. 5th
Where: Corinthians Arena, Sau Paulo, Brazil
Game time: 8:00 p.m. ET
TV: YouTube (KSHB41 locally in Kansas City, Westwood One locally in Los Angeles
Announcers: Rich Eisen, Kurt Warner, Stacey Dales (field reporter), Donald De La Haye (field reporter)
Radio: Westwood One: Ryan Radtke, Dante Hall | SiriusXM: 88; Los Angeles Chargers 225 – or Kansas City Chiefs 226
Referee: Carl Cheffers
Streaming: NFL +
Fanduel Sportsbook odds: Spread: Chargers (+3.5 |-104) | Chiefs (-3.5 | -118) Moneyline: Chargers +142, Chiefs -168 | Over/Under: 47.5 (Over -105, Under -115)

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-yor...s-how-to-watch-game-time-tv-channel-streaming

 

[New York Giants]

How bad is the Giants’ run defense?

This isn’t a piece I planned on writing.

Well, that’s a bit of a lie. I’ve been thinking about the New York Giants run defense for a while now, but have been putting off writing about it since the 2024 season ended. But I certainly didn’t anticipate writing this piece when I woke up this morning.

But I came across some things recently that both crystalized the ideas that have been bouncing around my noggin and were a call to action to finally put pen to page (so to speak). We need to talk about the state of the Giants’ run defense, as well as possibly reconceptualize defending the run.

I’m going to start at the more immediate and practical standpoint of what run defense could look like for the Giants this year, then we’ll take a step back and look at a wider picture of league-wide run defense.

The X’s and O’s​

When the Giants released their unofficial depth chart for the season, some fans were surprised — aghast even — that the defense appears to be a 3-3-5 nickel base defense.

The questions about run defense make sense from a “classic” point of view. Historically, the primary mode of run defense was to use big guys to take on blockers, stack and shed the blockers, and make the tackle.

That view isn’t, in and of itself, incorrect. Defenders putting themselves in position to make a tackle is the soul of defending the run. But that also isn’t incompatible or mutually exclusive with lighter personnel packages.

Modern offenses excel at weaponizing spacing and athletic mismatches to stress defenses in every way they can. We’ve seen defenders get smaller and faster to cover as much ground as possible and match up with hyper-athletic tight ends, running backs, and receivers.

Defenses at the college and NFL level have spent the last half-decade scrambling for ways to slow down modern offenses. There have been a proliferation of nickel packages, the adoption of “big nickel” three-safety packages, and the use of Cover-4 shells to take away explosive passing plays. The use of nickel packages and middle of field open coverage shells take defenders out of the box, leading to more opportunities for blockers to have numbers advantages.

Iowa State innovated the solution which became their “Air Raid Killer” defense, which was an “odd stack” front.

You can read much more about their schemes in my piece on that particular scheme from 2020, as well as Mark Schofield’s piece on how Bill Belichick incorporated Iowa State’s scheme into the New England Patriots’ defense.

The general philosophy behind how the scheme defends the run is that it concerns itself with gaps and not blockers.

In DIME personell sets, the SAM linebacker is replaced with a defensive back who essentially plays a STAR hybrid role.

By using a TITE front, the defensive line accounts for the interior gaps, and forces runs to the outside where the outside linebackers and defensive backs can make the tackle. The athleticism of the nickel or dime defense allows the defenders to beat the blockers to their landmarks, either speeding to spots getting through gaps before blocks can be locked in.

This, of course, relies on the defenders making their tackles when they are in position to do so.

That was the biggest issue with the Giants’ run defense I noticed on tape in the preseason. The defense as a whole were pretty consistently in good position to make their tackles and limit runs to a couple yards. However, they were not consistently making their tackles, or not doing so cleanly.

Their tackling improved in the final game of the preseason, but it’s something that will still need to carry over into the regular season. A year ago, the Giants’ tackling was poor to start the year, though it did improve as the season wore on. And since we’re talking about last year, let’s take a moment to talk about the Giants’ run defense in the context of the NFL as a whole.

How do the Giants stack up?​

The raw numbers for the Giants’ run defense were… not great.

The Giants gave up 2,316 yards on the ground (136.2 per game), 6th most in the NFL, while their 4.6 yards per carry allowed was tied for 7th most. That simply isn’t good enough for a defense as talented as the Giants appear to be in 2025 and those numbers have to go down.

The question then becomes “how?”

Well, maybe the better question is “why?”, because once we can define the problem, then we can look for possible solutions.

So let’s take things a step further and go a bit beyond the box score.

Player tracking data from NextGenStats has been a revolution in how we look at, and think about, the game of football. Being able to see where all players are in relation to each other on a moment-by-moment basis has enabled whole new levels of analysis. One of my favorites is ESPN’s “Win Rate” family of stats, and in this case I want to look at the Run Stop Win Rate.

They define a “Run Stop Win” as any of the following:

– Beating his blocker so he’s in better position to stop the runner.

– Disrupting the pocket or running lane by pushing his blocker backward.

– Containing the runner such that he must adjust his running lane.

– Recording a tackle within 3 yards of the line of scrimmage.

Based on those criteria, how would you guess the Giants’ defense ranked? 32nd? 30th? Surely they were in the bottom quartile, so 25th?

10th. The Giants’ defense as a whole had the 10th best Run Stop Win Rate last year. They were right between the Los Angeles Rams (11) and New York Jets (9), and were only one point behind the Philadelphia Eagles (3rd).

That’s pretty much in line with the efficiency numbers. Per Pro Football Reference, the Giants’ defense provided -7.19 expected points added (EPA), which ranks 17th in the NFL. It also which puts them just behind the Los Angeles Chargers who had -5.14 EPA. Both numbers were slightly better than the league average of -10.5 EPA.

So why were the results so dramatically different?

The first part, as I talked about above and have written about before, is that the Giants’ didn’t consistently finish.

The Giants actually did a good job of “winning” their run defense snaps and putting themselves in position to suffocate opposing running games. However, they allowed far too many leaky yards. Poor tackle attemps leading to broken or missed tackles kept the average high and the yards piling up. But as I mentioned, that DID improve over the course of the year, and the defenders did a better job of disrupting runs then making tackles when Shane Bowen pivoted to calling a more aggressive, penetrating defense with Elijah Chatman and Elijah Garcia as his starters once Dexter Lawrence went down.

For the other part of the equation I want to look at the Detroit Lions.

The Lions had the fifth-best run defense in the NFL last year, allowing just 1,672 yards (98.4 per game) last year. Obviously you’d expect a team with Super Bowl aspirations to give up 40 fewer yards per game than the lowly Giants.

What you might not expect is that the Lions allowed 4.5 yards per carry and had an EPA of -19.57, significantly worse than the Giants’ efficiency numbers.

The Pittsburgh Steelers, another great defense, allowed 1,672 yards (98.7 per game) on the ground and an EPA of -3.68, which is only a bit more efficient than the Giants were.

“Hol’ up,” you might say, “that math ain’t mathin’.”

Well, the missing bit of context is that the Giants faced a significant rate issue.

Of the top 10 run defenses in the NFL in yards per game, seven of them were in the Top 10 of scoring offense: Lions, Ravens, Buccaneers, Eagles, Packers, Vikings, and Broncos.

The LA Chargers (117.5 rushing yards per game allowed) were just outside the top 10 in scoring at 11th.

And of the top 10 in run defense, 9 were in the top 10 of fewest rushing attempts against and seven of them were in the top 10 of most passing attempts against.

In other words, the teams with the NFL’s most prolific offenses saw the least rushing attempts.

The Giants averaged 1.45 points per drive last year, less than half the 3.04 averaged by the Lions, and 0.62 points per drive below the NFL average of 2.07 per drive. That, coincidentally, would slot in just behind the Atlanta Falcons who saw the NFL’s 16th most rushing attempts against (458) and gave up the 15th most rushing yards (120.6 per game).

Oh, and the Falcons gave up 4.5 yards per carry last year.

The Giants, meanwhile (averaging that pathetic 1.45 points per drive) saw 503 rushing attempts against, which was tied for the sixth-most in the NFL.

Final thoughts​

So what does all this mean for the Giants’ run defense? To go back to my original question, just how bad are they?

The answer is “not great, but not as bad as they seem at first blush.”

The advanced stats suggest that the Giants’ defenders were often winning their assignments and in position to make plays — they just didn’t finish. That’s not good and absolutely needs to improve. But given that the Giants were frequently relying on young players (like Tyler Nubin and Dru Phillips), injured players (like Bobby Okereke and Brian Burns), or depth players (like Darius Muasau or Elijah Garcia), there is absolutely room for significant improvement.

The Giants’ raw numbers were bad, but they weren’t terrible on average; their average efficiency was above average, while their win rate was legitimately good. Their biggest problems were that they saw SO MANY rushing attempts that the yardage just piled up. And over time, all those rushing attempts were opportunities for an opposing professional to make a play.

They need to figure out how to force offenses to run less, and the answer seems to be for their own offense to score points. It isn’t a coincidence that the best offensive teams face more pass attempts and fewer run attempts. The Giants’ defense, with their anemic offense, saw the same number of pass attempts as run attempts — 503.

The Giants’ yards per carry allowed absolutely needs to improve, and improving their tackling should accomplish that. But even at last year’s rates, they would have had a league-average run defense if they saw a league-average number of rushing attempts.

Run defense is a team effort. It takes 11 players on defense working as a unit to function in the moment, but it also demands that the offense do its job and score points to force the other team to pass in order to keep pace.

We’ll see soon enough if they have either end of that equation solved.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-york-giants-analysis/134880/how-bad-is-the-giants-run-defense

 

[New York Giants]

Giants vs. Commanders, Week 1: How to watch, stream, listen, wager

The New York Giants kick off the 2025 regular season this Sunday with a divisional matchup against the Washington Commanders at Northwest Stadium.

Kickoff is set for 1 p.m. ET, airing nationally on FOX, as Brian Daboll’s squad looks to start the year with a road victory against a longtime NFC East rival.

This will be the 187th all-time meeting between the Giants and Commanders, including regular season and postseason matchups. Washington won the last meeting on Nov. 3, 2024, by a score of 27-22.

Fans will be watching closely to see how Russell Wilson and the Giants’ retooled offense respond after a challenging 2024 campaign, as well as whether the defense, led by Dexter Lawrence and Brian Burns, can contain the Commanders’ young playmakers. On Washington’s side, quarterback Jayden Daniels begins his second season as the starter, with newly signed wideout Terry McLaurin looking to build on another 1,000-yard campaign.

How to watch​

Matchup: Giants vs. Commanders
Date: Sunday, Sept. 7
Time: 1 p.m. ET
Location: Northwest Stadium – Landover, Md.
TV: FOX
Announcers: Kevin Burkhardt (play-by-play), Tom Brady (analyst), Erin Andrews (sideline), Tom Rinaldi (sideline)
Streaming: NFL+ (subscription required)
Odds: Giants +6 (-110) [line subject to change]

How to listen​

Radio: WFAN 660 AM | 101.9 FM – Bob Papa (play-by-play), Carl Banks (analyst), Howard Cross (sideline), John Schmeelk & Tiki Barber (pre- and postgame)
Pregame: Giants Gameday, 11 a.m. ET (presented by Hackensack Meridian Health)
Postgame: Giants Extra Point

Follow us on social media​

BBV on X: Follow @BigBlueView
Ed Valentine: Follow @valentine_ed on X | @ed.valentine on Threads | @edvalentine on Bluesky
BBV on Facebook: Click here to like the Big Blue View Facebook page
BBV on YouTube: Subscribe to the Big Blue View YouTube channel
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Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-yor...nders-week-1-how-to-watch-stream-listen-wager

 

[New York Giants]

Sunday Night Football, Week 1 – Ravens vs. Bills: How to watch, game time, TV channel, streaming

The first Sunday of NFL football is always an exciting day but at night is when the stars shine. Two of the NFL’s biggest stars will be in the national spotlight as Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens travel to Buffalo to take on Josh Allen and the Bills.

The Baltimore Ravens have won seven of their last nine opening day games and will look for their fourth Sunday night win in a row. Lamar Jackson will look to build off a prolific 2024 season where he finished a close second in MVP voting. After finishing last season with 4,172 passing yards and 41 touchdowns, the Baltimore quarterback is leads a dynamic must see offense.

The Buffalo Bills have been excellent at Highmark stadium finishing a perfect 10-0 there last season including playoff games. Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen was the one that beat out Lamar Jackson for NFL MVP honors. Coming off a season with 40 total touchdowns and leading the Bills to a 13-4 record, This dual between top quarterbacks will be a treat for NFL fans everywhere. With each of these offenses able to score, whichever defense can come up with the crucial stop could be the one that wins this marquee matchup.

What: Ravens vs. Bills
When: Sunday, Sept. 7
Where: Highmark Stadium, Orchard Park, NY.
Game time: 8:20 p.m. ET
TV: NBC
Announcers: Mike Tirico, Chris Collinsworth, Melissa Stark(field reporter)
Radio: Westwood One: Ryan Radtke, Mike Golic | SiriusXM: 88; Baltimore Ravens 226 – or Buffalo Bills 225
Referee: John Hussey
Streaming: NFL + and Peacock
Fanduel Sportsbook odds: Spread: Ravens (-1.5 |-108) | Bills (+1.5 | +112) Moneyline: Ravens -118, Bills +100 | Over/Under: 50.5 (Over -115, Under -105)

Follow us on social media​

BBV on X: Follow @BigBlueView
Ed Valentine: Follow @valentine_ed on X | @ed.valentine on Threads | edvalentine on Bluesky
BBV on Facebook: Click here to like the Big Blue View Facebook page
BBV on YouTube: Subscribe to the Big Blue View YouTube channel
BBV on Instagram: Click here to follow our Instagram page

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-yor...s-how-to-watch-game-time-tv-channel-streaming

 

[New York Giants]

Micah McFadden injury: Giants’ LB may have escaped serious injury

When Micah McFadden was carted off the field with his right leg in a cast early in the New York Giants’ loss to the Washington Commanders on Sunday, it looked as if his season might be over before it really began.

X-rays on the leg/foot injury McFadden suffered have been reported to be negative, and McFadden was spotted on the sideline later in the game with his right foot in a boot.

That is, obviously, potentially good news as the fourth-year linebacker has emerged as a defensive mainstay.

Here is the play on which McFadden was injured:

Here's the injury to Micah McFadden, right ankle, kinda got caught underneath.

Not good for the defense, McFadden is critical. pic.twitter.com/Aw5QfUtndP

— Alex Wilson (@AlexWilsonESM) September 7, 2025

McFadden was replaced in the lineup by Darius Muasau. The Commanders targeted Muasau on a 7-yard touchdown pass to Zach Ertz shortly after McFadden was carted off the field.

The Giants’ defense gave up 432 total yards on Sunday, 220 of that on the ground. McFadden’s return to the lineup, whenever it happens, will be welcomed.

This is also a contract year for McFadden, who is in the final year of his rookie deal.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-yor...ury-giants-lb-may-have-escaped-serious-injury

 

[New York Giants]

Giants-Commanders: 5 plays that led to the Giants’ giant loss

The New York Giants were abysmal in their opening game on Sunday for a third straight season. The offense mustered two field goals, as the defense surrendered 432 total yards, including 220 on the ground.

Washington was not a disciplined team, committing 12 penalties for 89 yards, many by the Washington offense. However, the Giants defense could not close zones and Daniels picked them apart on second- and third-and-long. The pass rush was solid, but could do little with the lack of coverage behind them.

Washington averaged 6.6 yards per play and the Giants 3.7. Here are five plays, sequences of plays, or situations that resulted in the Giants’ disappointing Week 1 performance.

Play(s) 1: The Giants offensive line​

The offensive line deserves an entire section here. Russell Wilson had little time to throw the football and the unit hardly generated any push at the point of attack for the rushing game. Andrew Thomas was missed, dearly, and James Hudson III struggled for most of the game. Serious questions should be asked about John Michael Schmitz. Greg Van Roten appeared to lose several reps that led to negative plays for the Giants’ offense, especially in high leverage situations.

New York averaged 3.2 yards per carry and 43 of those yards were Russell Wilson. There were no holes created up front – pure domination by Washington’s front seven. The few runs that were positive were to the outside. Overall, it was a terrible performance from an offensive line unit that’s been ineffective for years.

Play(s) 2: The Giants’ coverage in advantageous situations​

Washington mistakes led to several second/third-and-long situations, which is a perfect place for the Giants’ defense. However, the coverage was so poor, that Jayden Daniels calmly sat in the pocket and found answers; here’s one example below to Deebo Samuel:

Jayden Daniels finds Deebo Samuel to convert on 3rd & 11

NYGvsWAS on FOXhttps://t.co/HkKw7uXVnt pic.twitter.com/3wwh2u16kB

— NFL (@NFL) September 7, 2025

Intermediate crosses vs. man coverage and deep digs between zone voids were a reason for the blown opportunities, as were Daniels’ legs. The Giants defense had similar issues last year against Washington. They seem to not have a curveball or an answer for Daniels’ patience and legs, and the end result was another drive extender for Washington.

Now, with that said, the Giants’ defense did force five punts and a bad mistake at the end of the first half that cost Washington points. Although a few of those punts were forced due to Washington drops. But two second/third-and-longs on Washington’s eight play, 58-yard drive that resulted in a Bill Crosky-Merritt touchdown, were converted; a second-and-16 pass to Deebo Samuel was converted and a second-and-nineteen went for 13 yards to Terry McLaurin. Washington converted the ensuing third-and-6 on a Daniels’ scramble.

The Deebo Samuel touchdown drive saw a second-and-17 eventually converted on third-and-5, as well as a second-and-fifteen that Austin Ekeler converted. The Giants were toyed with by Washington.

Play 3: The dagger​

Samuel was a good addition by Washington in the offseason. He fits well with Kliff Kingsbury’s scheme and the Giants learned that on Sunday. Samuel caught seven for 77 with a 19-yard touchdown rush:

Dear Deebo Samuel haters,

Apologize now.

Thanks.pic.twitter.com/r3KvMIVy5N

— Scott Abraham (@Scott7news) September 7, 2025

The Giants – somehow – still had a chance with eight minutes left in the game; it was a one-possession, 14-6 affair before Samuel capped off a nine-play, 80-yard drive. This touchdown was the dagger that should have pierced the heart of the Giants in the previous hour. However, it inevitably did and the Giants fell to 0-1 on the season for the third consecutive year.

Play 4(s): A rookie sensation​

Bill Croskey-Merritt was expected to gain 6 yards on this rush per @NextGenStats , but gained 42 yards, good for the 4th most rush yards over expected on a rush so far this seasonpic.twitter.com/ylIzjn74Bv

— Doug Analytics (@Doug_Analytics) September 7, 2025

JCM BILL

Welcome to the NFL! pic.twitter.com/hNSX25PiHe

— Buddy Boy Bets (@Buddyboybets) September 7, 2025

Crosky-Merritt is a rookie seventh-round pick who played one game at the University of Arizona last season before being rendered ineligible by the NCAA. Crosky-Merritt had 10 rushes for 82 yards with the touchdown above.

That touchdown is a G/T counter where the backside guard and tackle pull to the frontside to create extra gaps to the boundary side. Jayden Daniels’ legs and ability to keep at the mesh-point forces defenders to remain disciplined until they can confirm the location of the football – it is a difficult task. Still, it appears like Darius Muasau was held on the play as he penetrated. Crosky-Merritt did a good job bouncing the run outside of Chauncey Golston who took on the first puller, but Cor’Dale Flott, or any other Giant, failed to execute contain, resulting in the touchdown.

Play 5: Washington picks on Darius Muasau​

Zach Ertz is an ageless wonder

I wanna see Ben Sinnott take over the TE1 spot but Ertz is still fairly reliable pic.twitter.com/Z94PNR3xvH

— NFL Draft Files (@NFL_DF) September 7, 2025

New York lost Micah McFadden to injury early in the game. Luckily for the Giants, the reports are negative, which is a good sign. Nevertheless, Washington quickly turned their eyes to Muasau on second-and-5 down in the red zone. Kingsbury motioned Ertz to stack behind another receiver and then Ertz did an excellent job at the top of his stem to halt Muasau in place before securing the first touchdown of the game.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/new-yor...ers-5-plays-that-led-to-the-giants-giant-loss

 

[New York Giants]

Same old Giants? They don’t have much time to prove otherwise

The New York Giants entered Sunday’s season-opener full of high hopes. They were full of good vibes, sort of like this:

Then, the Washington Commanders handed the Giants a 21-6 beat down that, while Giants head coach Brian Daboll would disagree, was not as close as the final score indicated. From a Giants’ perspective, it looked a lot like this:

via GIPHY

From the looks on their faces, the sounds of their voices and the words they were choosing in the post-game locker room Sunday night, you could easily tell that, while they wouldn’t say it, Giants players who have been through this before were feeling like this:

via GIPHY

All of that optimism is a thing of the past. Vanished. A memory. A summer fling that was never meant to last.

The Giants have 16 more of these beatings — err, games — on their schedule. Much has been made by the media — the Giants themselves have turned a deaf ear to questions about it — of the Giants starting 0-2 or worse in six of their last eight seasons.

Daboll has only been part of four of those. Dexter Lawrence and Darius Slayton, the longest-tenured Giants, have been around for six of those. Few players have been part of more than one or two of those.

After six years with the Giants, Slayton was a free agent in the offseason. He looked tired and defeated at the end of last season, ready for a fresh start in a new place. In the end, he chose to come back and try to get it right with the only team he has ever played for.

After Sunday’s game Slayton was somber.

“Definitely wasn’t how we wanted to start the year, for sure,” he said.

Avoiding the type of performance they had on Sunday was precisely why Daboll was asked so many times during training camp, several of those times by Big Blue View, about making changes geared toward improving the chance of being ready Week 1. Whatever the Giants did, it clearly did not work.

How do the Giants not let Sunday’s awful start spiral into something much, much worse? Something Giants fans know too many of their seasons have become since the 2011 Super Bowl?

“Don’t make it two, simple as that.”​

That was Lawrence in a quiet post-game locker room Sunday as afternoon turned to evening.

Is it simple, though? If it was simple wouldn’t the Giants, with a full, high-pressure offseason and on field practice that began way back in April, have fixed it already?

If it was simple, wouldn’t the Giants have figured out a way not to become the first NFL team in more than 80 years to be so offensively inept in Week 1 that they haven’t scored a touchdown in a season-opener in three years?

The Giants have failed to score a touchdown in their season opener in each of the last three years.

The last NFL team to be held without a TD in at least 3 straight season openers was the Detroit Lions from 1940 to 1942. pic.twitter.com/583uDisL3P

— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) September 7, 2025

In their most embarrassing sequence on Sunday, the Giants ran seven plays after getting a first-and-goal at the 8-yard line, three after being gifted first-and-goal at the 1-yard line thanks to a penalty on Washington’s Will Harris. They could only manage a field goal.

There was a pass that lost yardage, a drop, a fumble they fortunately recovered and plenty of bad blocking in that sequence.

“It’s about everybody. Everybody plays a role in this, it’s not just one guy. We all play a role, receivers, o-line, running backs,” Robinson said. “We all play a role in how this offense goes.”

Robinson said all the Giants can do is work to get better.

“We’ve got to continue to work and do the right things in practice, do the right things in the games and at the end of the day we’ve got to go out there and execute,” Robinson said. “It’s on us.”

The revamped, ballyhooed defense did not distinguish itself, either. Yes, Washington had scored only 14 points until midway through the third quarter. The Commanders, though, left points and opportunities on the board with several drops and poor end of half clock awareness by Jayden Daniels.

Washington totaled 432 yards, 220 rushing. The Giants let them off the hook on a number of long-yardage situations, and never seemed in control of the game. Nick Falato delved into some of the long-yardage issues.

“This wasn’t the result that we wanted,” said safety Tyler Nubin. “Obviously, we’re not going to throw it all away. We still have confidence in ourselves. We still know that we can be a good team.

“The hype doesn’t mean anything until you put it on tape and do it. We still think that we’ve got a good defense, we’ve just got to go back to the drawing board.”

Can the Giants fix it?​

That’s a good question. Just because they were unable to overcome Week 1 disasters the last two seasons does not mean they won’t be able to do so this time. They do have, on paper, an improved roster over.

Given a day to process the poor performance against Washington, Slayton spoke to media again on Monday and said he wasn’t resigned to this year being more of the same from the Giants.

“I wouldn’t say so. I mean, every year is its own year. Every game is its own game,” Slayton said. “Obviously, I see how you can get there as far as like a narrative goes. But that game, the reasons why we didn’t win that game or didn’t execute as well in that game, is different than any other game that we didn’t execute how we wanted to.

“So, we have to address those reasons for why yesterday didn’t go the way we wanted to go and then correct those this week going forward into our next game.”

The road ahead is daunting — a gauntlet of the Dallas Cowboys, Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers coming up over the next three weeks. An overall schedule in which they may be favored only once all season, Week 5 against the New Orleans Saints.

“I think the urgency is high just because it’s always high in the NFL. Whether it’s 0-2, 2-0, 3-0, the urgency to win every – It’s not the NBA where you play 90 games or wherever it is – we play 17 weeks of football,” Slayton said. “So, every game is urgent regardless of what our record is, our situation may or may not be. Every game is urgent, every game is important, especially against a division opponent like we have this week. So, I think the urgency is sky high, but I would say it’s always there. It needs to stay there.”

Andrew Thomas will eventually return at left tackle. That will help, but it won’t fix the leaks we saw Sunday at the other four positions on the offensive line.

The questions about when Jaxson Dart will take over from Russell Wilson at quarterback will continue — until Dart does exactly that. Whether it is fair to ask a rookie quarterback to fix anything behind a sub-par offensive line and without enough receivers who seem able to get open is another question.

Abdul Carter is wonderful. Brian Burns and Kayvon Thibodeaux are pretty darn good, too. The Giants have edge rushers. They have Dexter Lawrence.

The worries about the run defense were not assuaged, though, by Sunday’s performance. The familiar difficulties in pass coverage, especially in long-yardage situations that should have been advantageous to the defense, were still present even with Paulson Adebo and Jevon Holland in the lineup. There were no game-changing turnovers created by a defense that must create them if the Giants are going to win games this season.

There are no easy solutions.

Chris Pflum delved into some of the technique and execution errors on offense, which makes you wonder what the Giants have been practicing since April.

Evan Neal was inactive, and Jalin Hyatt never got off the bench. The Giants clearly no longer see those two former high draft picks as answers to their problems.

On defense, linebacker Micah McFadden is hurt and defensive tackle Darius Alexander does not appear to be ready. There are no better defensive backs to insert into the lineup than the ones the Giants are already using. Maybe getting Abdul Carter on the field for more than 38 defensive snaps (54%) would be a place to start.

It isn’t impossible for the Giants to play better, to straighten things out and have a decent season. Still, recent history tells us clearly that bad starts have led to bad seasons.

The Giants’ season already feels like it is on the brink. They need to find answers, quickly, that they have not been able to come up with the past two seasons.

Source: https://www.bigblueview.com/valenti...s-they-dont-have-much-time-to-prove-otherwise