Pat Shurmur: How he determines preseason playing time

Remember the days when the first preseason game would see the starters play one series, the second game a quarter plus, and the third game was considered the dress rehearsal?

Yeah, so does Giants head coach Pat Shurmur. But those days are gone and Shurmur, like his contemporaries, has been tailoring the preseason personnel playing time allotments according to the cards they’re dealt.

“Every team is different, relative to where they are in their cycles. Some have veteran teams they handle in different ways,” Shurmur said during his day-after conference call with reporters.

“While I was in Philly, there was a year where we had a lot of guys near 30 years old, and we would give them a day or two off during training camp. I think every team is different; it’s a dynamic model.”

That model is important because the challenge is to get all the players enough snaps so that the coaches can not only make fair and accurate evaluations.

In the Giants’ case, this year’s roster is loaded with young players in need of more preseason snaps versus last year’s roster.

“We also have, I call it our second brain, our gut, that tells us what we need to be doing, (if) we need more of this,” Shurmur said.

“We have a trend that we want to put our team on, but then we have to adjust based on what we see and what we are feeling.”

Last year quarterback Eli Manning, who like the rest of his teammates was learning a new system, logged 16 snaps over the first two preseason games, all those coming in Week 1.

He finished the four-game preseason with 50 preseason snaps, an average of 12.5 snaps per game.

This preseason, Manning has played in 14 snaps and is on pace 28 snaps in the preseason if the weekly average holds up.

The two-fold reason for that includes Manning being in his second year in the system combined with the team’s desire to get rookie Daniel Jones as much work as possible.

Shurmur has also been a little more cautious regarding player practice and playing schedules. Veterans such as running back Saquon Barkley and edge Markus Golden are two examples of players who have gotten “workload management” days.

Barkley and tight end Evan Engram are examples of players who have been healthy scratches for the first two preseason games, a prudent move by the coaching staff to ensure that their two most valuable assets on offense are kept out of harm’s way.

“I think you are seeing more and more where coaches are handling the preseason differently,” Shurmur said.

“To me, it’s a little bit like everyone wants to talk about halftime adjustments. I marvel at that because you are constantly making adjustments. The same can be said about the preseason; people are starting to divert their opinions as to the importance of playing your players in the preseason games.”

Although the next preseason game is still a week away, Shurmur hinted that next week’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals, the only team out of the four preseason opponents the Giants won’t see during the regular season, might not be your typical “dress rehearsal.”

“I’ve already heard people talking to me about the third preseason game, and it’s your dress rehearsal--that’s kind of like your halftime adjustments,” he said.

But again, given the timing of the game and the aforementioned fact that the Giants and Bengals won’t see each other during the regular season, perhaps Shurmur will lean more toward playing his starters a little longer.

That's because in the following week in the preseason finale against the Patriots, he can sit all the starters and focus on getting some last-minute tape on the younger players vying for a roster spot.

“I think you are getting ready to play every practice and every game," he said.

"As a coach, you have to weigh the importance of the work you are doing and how much work each guy gets. Every team is different, and every coach views it differently based on the players they have and their experiences.”

(Top photo by Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports)