New York Giants Training Camp Week 4 Storylines to Watch

The Giants are hitting the road this week as they continue getting ready for the upcoming season. Here's a look at some of the top developing storylines surrounding the Giants as they gear up for their fourth week of training camp.

Author:
Patricia Traina
Publish date:
Aug 17, 2021 7:00 AM EDT

The New York Giants return to the field Tuesday, when they'll go through a practice on the Quest Diagnostics Training Center prior to packing up for their trip to Cleveland.

Tuesday promises to be a busy one as general manager Dave Gettleman, team president John Mara the three coordinators, and all the assistant coaches are scheduled to speak to the media before the team holds a two-hour practice in the afternoon. Make sure you keep it here at GiantsCountry.com for all the latest.

Here's a rundown of some developing storylines taking place this week at camp.

Hitting the Road

The Giants are scheduled to be in Cleveland for joint practices Thursday and Friday, where the first-team offense and defense will be able to see where they stack up against another set of faces in a controlled environment ahead of their preseason Week 2 game Sunday.

While the joint practices will give the coaches another thing to look at, Judge said they're not taking the place of the preseason game that subtracted from the schedule starting this year.

"There’s no replication for a game. Any experience these players get in a game itself is critical at the beginning of the season not only for their mental preparation, but also physically getting ready with the flow of the game, the hits you’re going to take," he said.

"The things you do in practice, you don’t do a lot of live tackling, so the game is obviously played and ends with some kind of tackle. So, the game itself is critical for them to be prepared physically and mentally, but in terms of the joint practices, it’s definitely a key part of our preparation."

The Next Step for Saquon

The Giants are continuing their ramp-up of running back Saquon Barkley, but don't expect to see him participating in team drills against the Browns in both the joint practices and the game itself.

"At this point, the focus is really to kind of get him moving more and more within the football movements," Judge said.

"In terms of what that’s going to mean for him this week in Cleveland, we’ll have to wait and see. I wouldn’t anticipate him being in any kind of live drills this week. As of this point, that would be the plan, but we’ll see where it goes as we go on down further and further when his body is ready for all the football."

A couple of weeks ago, Judge told reporters that he wasn't ruling out potentially getting Barkley into some preseason action. If that were to happen--a big IF--it would probably take place against the Patriots and probably in the controlled practice environment rather than a game.

The Giants remain hopeful that Barkley will be ready for Week 1 against Denver, but it remains to be seen whether he'll be able to take a full workload by then or if they'll have to scale his reps back significantly.

Roster Roulette

With injuries piling up on the offensive line, Judge admitted the obvious: That the team will be looking to add to that group.

"On the offensive line, you’ve got to have a lot of bodies to operate, so in terms of bringing somebody in, there’s a good chance that we’re going to look to bring somebody in before going to Cleveland," Judge said Sunday.

Right now, the pickings are slim, though teams around the league do have some roster cuts that need to be made by Tuesday when training camp rosters need to be reduced from 90 to 85. Even then, it's unlikely that a quality offensive lineman might shake loose so soon.

Whoever the Giants do bring in will have to be brought up to speed quickly.

"You don’t start with the entire playbook," Judge said of the task of getting a player up to speed on the offense. "You start with the install they have to operate with, harp on the technique and the calls they’re going to have at the line of scrimmage to make sure they can go out there and operate with your guys."

Roster Cuts Coming

As previously mentioned, the Giants will have to trim their roster from 90 to 85 (they have an exemption for running back Sandro Platzgummer, the player from the International Pathway Program, so technically, they have 91 players on the roster).

The Giants have already made three roster moves, placing offensive lineman Kyle Murphy (ankle), linebacker T.J. Brunson (ACL), and safety Joshua Kalu (torn pectoral) on injured reserve. They also acquired cornerback Keion Crossen via trade and made the signing of quarterback Brian Lewerke official.

That means the Giants currently have 87 players on their roster as of Monday evening, including running back Sandro Platzgummer, for whom they have an exemption. So the Giants will need to make one more roster move to get to the NFL limit.

But the Giants might end up making more roster moves if they add more offensive linemen to the mix, as is likely to be the case. And in that case, the Giants will simply have to swap out a few guys on the roster to accommodate newcomers.

Injured Players Will Make the Trip

Judge told reporters that he's planning to bring all the injured players with the team to Cleveland to continue their respective rehabs.

"Yeah, right now we are planning to take injured players with us. The purpose being going out there and letting them do some of their rehab and recovery while we’re out there either at Cleveland’s facilities or on the field while we’re practicing, so that will be the plan right now," he said.

Judge said last week that he was hopeful of getting receiver Kadarius Toney, who has had his workload scaled back due to an undisclosed injury, back on the field this week.

Big Media Day on Tuesday

The Giants are holding just the one practice this week at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center before packing up to leave for Cleveland, but from a media perspective, it will be a big and busy day.

Team president John Mara, general manager Dave Gettleman, the three coordinators, all the assistant coaches, and head coach Joe Judge are all scheduled to speak to the media before the team hits the practice field Tuesday afternoon.

One wonders what the hot topics of the day will be?