New York Giants News

Giants news, 12/4: Draft pick Chris Williamson dropped from practice squad, more

Defensive back bumped from practice squad, emergency quarterback, more headlines

By Ed Valentine@Valentine_Ed Dec 4, 2020, 6:00am EST

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Chris Williamson dropped from practice squad

The Giants announced on Thursday that they had dropped defensive back Chris Williamson from their practice squad. Williamson, a seventh-round pick out of Minnesota (247th overall), had spent the entire season on the practice squad.

The Giants currently have two players going through COVID-19 protocols, quarterbacks Alex Tanney and Joe Webb. Tanney could clear the protocols in time to be added to the practice squad or 53-man roster by Saturday. Webb reportedly did not enter the six-day protocol until Tuesday, so he won’t clear in time for Sunday’s game against the Seattle Seahawks.

The 34-year-old Webb was selected in the sixth round of the 2010 NFL Draft by the Minnesota Vikings as a quarterback. He has completed 90-of-159 passes (56.6 percent) in his career. Webb, though, has done more than play quarterback. he has been used as a running back, wide receiver, kickoff returner and has played on coverage teams.

“Joe is here to be a football player. Whenever Joe is going to be here, Joe is a Swiss Army knife. Joe can do a little bit of everything. He’s the perfect guy I would say to come in in this COVID environment, because he can do so many different jobs,” special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey said. “Not to say that Joe’s the end all be all, but when you get a guy that has that type of versatility and position flex, you can play him at a bunch of different spots and he can fill some holes for you.”

Daniel Jones will travel to Seattle

Even if he doesn’t play, quarterback Daniel Jones will accompany the Giants on their trip across the country to Seattle.

“I plan for him to travel, yes,” coach Hoe Judge said. “The only thing that would ever supersede that right there, to be honest with you, is if there was any issue with COVID where we thought it was a bad measure for Daniel to go or for anyone on the team to have extra players there, or if there was a situation where we thought that the flight out there would impact the injury worse, that it would go ahead and slow the recovery. That would be the only thing. We took Saquon (Barkley) earlier in the year to LA. He’s a captain and we wanted him out there with the team. Same with Daniel. He’s a captain.

“Obviously, we’re getting him ready to play right now. We have to wait and see where his body is at. But the only thing that would slow that down would be something medically that we didn’t think was to his advantage (to travel).”

At quarterback ... Golden Tate?

Wide receiver Golden Tate has twice thrown passes on trick plays in 2020. After Jones went out of Sunday’s game, Colt McCoy was the only quarterback on the active roster. Could Tate, the veteran wide receiver, have played quarterback in an emergency?

“It’s [playing quarterback] one of those things that sounds really cool, like guys just talking about it not thinking it’s realistically going to happen. But then once it becomes potentially realistic, you’re like ‘Oh, oh. This could be scary.’ I think I’m one of the candidates that could go out there if something were to happen, God forbid. I’m not sure what any of us emergency quarterbacks need to do to prepare for that big moment. We’ll cross that bridge if we get there,” Tate said.