Giants news, 10/25: Saquon Barkley’s workload, Daniel Jones, more headlines

Let’s get to your Friday headlines

By Ed Valentine@Valentine_Ed Oct 25, 2019, 7:00am EDT

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Barkley on practice limitations

Coach Pat Shurmur said Thursday that the Giants might need to limit the workload of Saquon Barkley during practices as he continues to recover from his high ankle sprain. Is Barkley OK with that?

“As a competitor, you want to, not just only in the game but in practice, go out there every single day. But whatever is going to benefit the team and benefit me, I guess, to help my team on Sunday. So that’s the way that Coach believes is going to help,” Barkley said. “Like I said, continue to be open minded like I was when I had the injury. Be open minded and just take it day by day and continue to try to prepare myself to be ready.”

Aggression vs. ball security

NextGenStats charting tells us that Daniel Jones has been the NFL’s most aggressive quarterback. He has also been responsible for 12 of the Giants’ NFL-worst 18 turnovers. here is offensive coordinator Mike Shula discussing the “fine line” between aggression and safety with the ball.

“It’s easy to say, ‘Yeah, get the ball out faster.’ But there are times, and that’s what’s really cool I think about this position, where you have to hang on to that first guy because if you do, he’s going to come open and it’s going to be a big play. Then there’s a fine line of, ‘Hey, I can’t, even though I know he’s going to come open, I have to get the ball out because otherwise I’m going to get sacked or the ball is going to get stripped.’ Those are constant throughout your career as a quarterback and as a coach. There are so many fine lines in that regard, and so we just keep trying to preach awareness.”

Jabrill Peppers: Defense is getting better

Safety Jabrill Peppers knows it doesn’t always seem to be the case, but he thinks the Giants are getting better on defense.

“We’re progressing. It might not look pretty all of the time, but I definitely think we’re trending in the right direction. Like I said, we just have to clean up some of those small details because in a game, those things get exploited,” Peppers said. “The wrong step here, now you’re out of your phase. One wrong step, now you’re reached or you’re late on a throw and instead of an interception or a PBU (pass breakup), it’s a catch and tackle. Just things like that. But there’s a lot of football left to be played. We’re going to keep attacking it and keep attacking it.”