Giants’ Struggles: Injuries and Season Readiness Blamed by Insider

Giants’ Struggles: Injuries and Season Readiness Blamed by Insider

PHILADELPHIA – Christmas Day is Monday and the Philadelphia Eagles are playing at Lincoln Financial Field. Monday will be their fourth game of the season, but only their first against the NFC rival New York Giants. The teams go back to back in two weeks and play again in two weeks at MetLife Stadium in the regular season finale.

Let’s unpack some Giants tips with longtime tipster Patricia Traina, publisher and author of GiantsCountry.com, part of SI.com’s Fan Nation network, and host of the LockedOn Giants podcast. Here are five questions for Traina about the Giants. Q: The Giants were a playoff team last year and won a game. What happened to them this year? Traina: People point to injuries, but I’m willing to die on top of a hill that believes the team just wasn’t ready to start the season. All summer, it felt like head coach Brian Daboll went into training camp to make sure the team made it to Week 1 healthy, and as a result, they rarely entered the field in the preseason. (And when they did, it was against a weak Carolina team, and only for a few series.)

I don’t care how many practice reps the starters got. Game repetitions and game speed cannot be simulated in practice. On that note, they continued to try to figure out their Week 1 starting offensive line, and when injury suddenly struck, they moved Josh Ezeudu, who has never played LT at the NFL level, into that spot. , they added Marcus McKethan, who spent his entire rookie campaign and most of the practice cap at right guard, and they kept Shane Lemieux over Tire Phillips? Add all that and then the slap the Cowboys gave them in Week 1, and they never recovered. Things just snowballed and got uglier.

So here we are. Traina: I think DeVito is No. 1. If Jones isn’t ready to start the season, then technically yes, he would be in the starting lineup. But will he skip the Joneses, all things being equal? I don’t think so. DeVito’s status also depends a lot on how the Giants do at linebacker this offseason. If they draft a quarterback in the first round, DeVito ends up falling to third. If they sign a veteran, he might have a chance to hold down the 2nd spot. But Brian Daboll has already said Jones is the starter when healthy.

As for whether they move on from Jones next year, they can’t because of his salary numbers. But after that? Yeah, I can see that being a thing, unless he has the kind of year they were expecting this year. That said, I don’t think Daboll is stupid for letting his ego get in the way of progress.

He’s built a relationship with the players, and if he were to give up Martindale, who is beloved by the defensive backs, that might not go over well in the locker room. I think if Martindale leaves, it will come down to a head coach or retirement. I don’t think he wants to leave, to be honest. But you never know what really goes on behind closed doors, and if Daboll is the type to scold people, not everyone can take it.