How the Giants Are Weaponizing Sports Science to Fight an Achilles Crisis

After losing three players to devastating Achilles tears in three weeks, New York is pulling out all the stops—overhauling their training facility with specialized diagnostic tech to protect the roster.

Jun 3, 2026; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New York Giants head coach John Harbaugh talks with media after organized team activities at Quest Diagnostics Training Center. | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

New York Giants head coach John Harbaugh wants Big Blue fans to know that he’s just as tired of the rash of torn Achilles tendon injuries that have struck three different players–undrafted free agent cornerback Thaddeus Dixon, defensive lineman Roy Robertson-Harris, and receiver Gunner Olszewski–over the last three weeks.

Even more frustrating is the unpredictable nature of the injury.

“You look for answers, and there are none. You can't predict tendons,” Harbaugh said.

“There's no common denominator with any of the three guys; there are no common denominators with loads or anything else.

“There is a common denominator with the movement pattern when they tore it,” he continued. “Kind of a reset, stepping-back reset deal that happened. We try to caution our guys against that.”

Of course, in the heat of the moment, it’s very easy for a player to forget to use proper movement given the nature of the game.

To that end, the Giants are not leaving anything further to chance and are planning to upgrade their training and diagnostic equipment to ensure that they catch any signs of a problem before it escalates into a full-blown issue.

“We’re bringing in four new pieces of equipment between strength training equipment, testing equipment, and body movement equipment to try to make sure we can do everything for our players and make it as individualized as we can,” Harbaugh said.

They’ve also upped their proactiveness by testing every player to ensure no one is at risk of injury.

“That's what you do, you try to tackle it with everything you've got” Harbaugh said

Dixon and Olszewski are done for the year, but the head coach said there is hope that Robertson-Harris, who suffered his injury two weeks ago, might be able to return later in the season, which is why they haven’t put him on IR just yet.

"With Roy's situation, time-frame-wise, there's a chance he could get back late in the season. We're going to try to hold off on that if we can,” Harbaugh said.

Harbaugh Reveals Why Jason Sanders Was Cut

Former Gians kicker Jason Sanders, who was cut by the team on Tuesday, signed with the Jets, who in turn cut another one-time Giants kicker, Younghoe Koo.

"This is one of those environments, it's windy out here, it always has been," Harbaugh said in explaining the decision to move on from Sanders. "It's a tough environment to kick in. His style might not be a perfect fit for here really right now."

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