Big Picture Things We Learned About the Giants This Summer

Let’s be honest.

Who out there thought that NFL training camps would start on time if be held at all?

I confess I had my doubts, but I was wrong (thankfully) about it, and I am happy to see that so far, the players, coaches, and staff have taken the recommended safety precautions seriously.

But with that said, we made it through some unchartered waters, with more still ahead now that travel and mixing it up with other teams whose health and safety protocols might bear the slightest variation from what has kept the Giants safe.

We'll worry about that as it comes up, but as we say goodbye to a somewhat weird, yet eye-opening summer training camo, there are a lot of positives to take away as the team now transitions into the regualr-season mode.

Why Judge’s "Hard Ass" Approach Has Worked

A question was put to team COO John Mara regarding current Giants head coach Joe Judge and why his no-nonsense approach in practices has gone over a lot smoother than the last time a head coach (Tom Coughlin) tried it.

“Every coach, every staff has its own unique personality, their own unique methods. The combination of the intensity of the practices plus the amount of teaching that goes on, the communication level and the way the players seem to be buying into it, I just feel good about all that,” Mara said.

The team’s co-owner refused to compare Judge’s approach to that of any other head coach in franchise history. Still, there are a couple of reasons why one can point to Judge’s “hard ass” approach going over a lot easier than that of Coughlin when he came through the door in 2004.

The first is in the age difference of the players. The Giants have more than half of their roster under the age of 25, and only a small number of players have won anything worth noting in their pro careers.

When Coughlin arrived, he inherited a team with veterans like Michael Strahan, Amani Toomer, and Tiki Barber, who were older and who had been to a Super Bowl under the previous head coach (Jim Fassel).

Combine that with the fact that Coughlin’s approach, unlike that of Judge’s, was to bark out expectations without explaining the method behind the madness, and it wasn’t hard to see why some players were rubbed the wrong way by Coughlin.

It’s All About Weekly Progress

Ask anyone associated with the Giants what the year-end desired goal is, and chances are you’ll get the same answer.

Progress.

Now that should be a given, but unfortunately, people sometimes lose sight of that when they see a team with a poor won-loss record.

A great example of that is last season. The Giants only won four games, one fewer than the five they had won the year before. But unlike 2018, when the team started to show progress down the stretch that gave both team ownership and general manager Dave Gettleman hope that better days were ahead for the franchise, in 2019, the bottom fell out.

The Giants looked the same in Weeks 14, 15, 16, and 17 as they did in Weeks 1, 2, 3, and 4—maybe even worse because it seemed the same mistakes and breakdowns were happening with the coaching staff having no clue how to stop the bleeding.

This is why Mara and Dave Gettleman stress the importance of making progress versus attaching a number of wins to a season.

“I want to feel like when we walk off the field after the last game that we play, whenever that is, that we’re moving in the right direction. That we have the pieces in place to compete for a Super Bowl, and that the combination of people that we have here is going to work going forward. That’s what Steve (Tisch) and I need to feel like,” Mara said.

“I think we give the same answer every year because that’s truly what it is. You can’t pin it to a certain win-loss total, but you just want to feel like this group that we have together right now is building something that’s going to compete for a championship.”

So does that mean that if a certain number of wins aren’t achieved, it will be time to blow everything up?

If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try, Try, and Try Again

Let’s look at the Giants cornerbacks situation, which has seen the Giants add four guys at the position over the last week.

The Giants are without DeAndre Baker, a first-round draft pick whose NFL career hangs in the balance as he prepares to fight for his life and his reputation after being accused and charged of community four counts of armed robbery.

They are also without Sam Beal, their third-round pick in the 2018 supplemental draft, who decided to opt-out of this season amid COVID-19 concerns.

So outside of James Bradberry, a veteran free agent import, and before the addition of established veteran Logan Ryan the Giants were left with Darnay Holmes, a rookie drafted in the fourth round (and an up-and-coming player at that), sixth-rounder Corey Ballentine, seventh-rounder Chris Williamson, undrafted free agents Grant Haley, Jarren Williams, and Montre Hartage. Journeyman KeiVare Russell, Prince Smith, and Brandon Williams; XFL import Dravon Askew-Henry; and newly acquired Isaac Yiadom.

(Note: I’m not counting Julian Love in this group since he’s once again looking like he’ll be with the safeties this season.)

Given that collection of players I mentioned above, I think it was somewhat unrealistic to expect those guys to come in and play like the second coming of Richard Sherman or Darelle Revis.

Don’t get me wrong; there’s talent in that group. But that talent comes in all varieties, with some of it from a smaller college program.

Many of those young guys have been asked to do more than they might have been ready to do. Some, like Ballentine last year, were asked to play roles that weren't the best fit.

At some point, you’d like to think all that youth will develop into a mini squad of shutdown corners.

But if this team is going to be competitive, they need the coaching staff to strike a balance with increasing the youngsters’ workload so that they become serviceable and dependable, and staffing guys who will allow them to be competitive in the interim.

They're Bullish on Daniel Jones

While the coaches try to figure out what to do with all the youth at cornerback, one position that they can't get wrong is quarterback.

So far, just about everyone with the team has been bullish about second-year starter Daniel Jones' prospects in taking the next step as an NFL starting quarterback.

"I’m comfortable and confident with him right now, just for what that’s worth," said Gettleman, who made the call to draft Jones sixth overall last year.

"Obviously, it’s how he plays, what kind of a year he has, how successful he is running, again it’s his third offense in three years by the way, running the team, how he handles the leadership piece. It’s all of those things and, obviously, how well he plays."

Gettleman went on to mention how Jones was able to engineer a come-from-behind win and make big throws.

But those fumbles.

"The only thing that was a little frustrating last year were the turnovers, but he had a solid rookie year. He did things that no other rookie quarterback has ever done. For some reason, I just feel like the fumbles have overshadowed all of that stuff."

With good reason. A team cannot turn the ball over and expect to win. It just doesn't happen. Gettleman knows it. Judge knows it, and Jones knows it.

To his credit, Jones went through numerous drills in the off-season and summer to correct the problem. But as we saw a few times this summer, some of those bad habits like not putting two hands on the ball crept back into his game.

However, Jones is conscientious enough to work on all that and more, which has COO John Mara feeling good about the former Duke star as the long-term successor to Eli Manning.

"Yeah, I feel good about him right now, the amount of work he’s put in, the way he’s looked at camp," he said.

"I’d like to see him take the next step this year. I’m confident that he will do that. The thing that is gratifying to me is that I know our coaching staff is very high on him right now. Guys that have been around successful quarterbacks in the past, and they think that he has what it takes to get us to the next level."

He better; otherwise, this organization is in deep trouble.

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