Why Preseason Snaps Are Especially Important for NY Giants

A study by the National Library of Medicine uncovers a hidden benefit of playing starters in the preseason for injury-prone teams.

New York Giants huddle during minicamp at Quest Diagnostics Training Center. | John Jones-Imagn Images

For reasons known only to New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll, the team’s starters and key reserves have played sparingly in the last two preseasons, only to come out looking ill-prepared and in some cases unconditioned for when the start of the regular season rolled around.

While Daboll, who refused to offer any insight into whether he’s finally changed his mind about playing his starters more this preseason, hasn’t indicated if he plans to change his mind starting today when the Giants visit the Buffalo Bills, if he needs any last-minute convincing, an August 2021 study by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) might be worth a look.

The study investigated the injury rate in the NFL during the first four weeks of the 2020 NFL season, the year that preseason games were cancelled due to the COVID pandemic, to determine if the lack of preseason snaps had any bearing on the injury rate in the season's first month. 

The study further compared the injury rate from the 2020 season with the prior year’s injury rate over the same period.

The findings revealed that there were more soft tissue injuries suffered by players in the first four weeks of the 2020 season after the long layoff in actual football activity than there had been the year prior.

The reason for the increase in injuries from 2019 to 2020 likely boiled down to the players not being able to truly get into football shape by engaging in blocking, tackling, and other physical activities that are otherwise limited or controlled by head coaches during practices and scrimmages with other teams. 

Therefore, players were found to be more fatigued and more susceptible to soft tissue injuries than those who were allowed to get into “football shape.” 

In another study done by the NHL, there was a clear increase in musculoskeletal injuries from 2019 (632) to 2020 (765) across the league’s landscape, again attributed to players not being allowed to get into football shape via preseason snaps. 

And within the first four weeks of both seasons, the injuries-per-team median was found to be higher in the 2020 season.

Where Daboll stands on the matter of preseason snaps for starters

Aug 4, 2025; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll reacts during training camp at Quest Diagnostics Training Center. | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

Daboll willingly played his starters in his first season as head coach, likely due to the newness of the offensive and defensive systems. The Giants not only enjoyed relatively good health that year, but they also finished with a surprising 9-7-1 record.

But in the last two seasons, his approach has been to only play the starters if there was no joint practice scheduled the week leading into a preseason game. Last year in particular, the Giants had two joint practice sessions in Weeks 1 and 3 of the preseason, which left the starters to get a little bit of work in Week 2 of the preseason.

The long layoff from live reps did the Giants no good when the 2024 campaign started, as for the second season in a row, they were punched in the mouth by an opponent, never to recover for the rest of the season.

So will Daboll change his thought process and put the players in an environment that, unlike practices and scrimmages, isn’t controlled regarding the level of physicality a team is exposed to? 

“There's no substitute for playing the game,” he admitted earlier this week.  “You have to tackle. You don't do a whole lot (in practice). Some people do some live tackling, but it's not much. 

“There's no substitute for a quarterback when he knows he can get hit. There's no substitute for an offensive guard cleaning the pocket or being very physical in the run game in gang tackling. That's the game of football. So you try to balance that with what you think is best for the football team.”

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