New York Giants News

Giants news, 11/13: COVID-19 bye week impact, assessing Daniel Jones, more

Let’s get to your Friday New York Giants headlines

By Ed Valentine@Valentine_Ed Nov 13, 2020, 6:06am EST

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NFL: New York Giants at Washington Football Team

Giants’ bye week won’t be normal

The Giants have their bye next week. In a season impacted heavily by COVID-19, there will be nothing normal about it. Coach Joe Judge gave a lengthy answer when asked about how the team would approach next week.

“Everyone has to test every day ... We can make it available for the players if their families come in to come in and get tested and make sure they’re in the right position ... We just want to make sure that everyone has what they need on the front end. Maybe get their families up here a little bit early, the opportunity to get them tested to make sure everyone is in kind of that same situation of knowing where we’ve been,” Judge said. “That being said, I think it just comes down to we all have to be very conscious of what we do in those few days off, and make the right decisions on where we go and who we’re around.”

The coach continued by talking about how making those “right” decisions is “easier said than done.”

“Look, I can tell you personally from my standpoint, I have a ninth grader who’s in high school. He’s going to high school right now with kids from all over New York, New Jersey, some parts of Pennsylvania, going to his high school. It’s a deal right there where I have to remind him on a daily basis to of like ‘hey look dude, you have to make sure you wear your mask,’ “ Judge said. “There have been a lot of weekends where I haven’t been able to let him just go out and hang out at parties or walk the streets of some of the towns and hang out because, to be honest with you, we have to be conscious of if I let him do that, what am I bringing back into my house, what may I bring back to the team? There are tough effects it has on everyone’s individual families, a lot of sacrifices people are making that go very unnoticed.

“Look, our players’ families are making a tremendous sacrifice as well. You have players who haven’t seen their wives or kids for some time now, whereas if it was a normal year, they might fly up for the game weekend, see the game. Obviously, that’s not the case. In a normal year with a normal bye week, they would go home, see some family, kind of get a mental reset before coming back up. That’s not the case, either ... we have to give them the opportunity to kind of mentally reset, and hopefully they do have the opportunities to see family or see friends. We just want to make sure they do it safely by knowing where everyone’s been and making sure everybody has been tested if that’s an opportunity.”

More headlines

Reassessing Daniel Jones – The Athletic

“It’s hard for me to put my trust in him because you see really good flashes, but then there are just times when there are so many boneheaded mistakes,” an evaluator said. “Him, Sam Darnold, Mitch Trubisky are all the same to me. Talented enough, can scramble enough, but not consistent enough. Are there coaches who can develop these guys?”

The Giants brought in former Cowboys coach Jason Garrett as their coordinator. The team ranks 16th in defensive EPA and third in special-teams EPA. The offense ranks 30th, ahead of only Denver and the Jets.

“Jason called a helluva game against Tampa (during a 25-23 defeat in Week 8),” an offensive coach said. “They had guys running deep three times and the quarterback doesn’t even look at them. That is the first read in the play. He ends up scrambling on two of them and throwing interceptions. Someone needs to tell the quarterback, ‘You’re either going to do what we are telling you to do or we are f—-ing playing someone else.’ ”

An evaluator said he thought Jones was actually playing more like Darnold was expected to play.

“One is more talented in the body (Darnold) and one is more talented in the mind (Jones), but that being said, the reason Daniel Jones has been bad is because he has made really poor decisions,” this evaluator said. “The reason you took Daniel Jones is because he is smart and was coached well and all these things, but he is doing the exact opposite of the reason you took him.”

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