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Giants news, 7/23: Giants’ players begin COVID-19 testing Thursday

Let’s get to your Thursday headlines

By Ed Valentine

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New York Giants v Cincinnati Bengals Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images

Good morning, New York Giants fans!

Giants’ rookies, quarterbacks and rehabbing players will report on Thursday for their first round of COVID-19 testing. Players will need to test negative twice before they are allowed into the Giants’ facility for physicals. On-field work can begin once all of that is done. Here is the current schedule.

Despite all of the adversity, at least one Giants’ rookie is excited to get started.

Agent's Take: Inside franchise tag grievances past and present, including Leonard Williams' dispute - CBSSports.com

Williams was listed as a defensive tackle when he received his franchise tag. He wants to be classified as a defensive end. The defensive tackle tag amount is $16.126 million. The defensive end salary is $17.788 million, $1.662 million more than the defensive tackle tag.

Williams, who was acquired by the Giants in a midseason trade with the Jets last season, lined up as defensive tackle or nose tackle on 88.14 percent of his defensive snaps in 2019 according to ESPN Stats & Information. After the trade to the Giants, only 21 percent of Williams' snaps were at defensive end. Overall, Williams lined up at defensive end on 81 of his 683 snaps last season.

NFL requires fans to wear face coverings at games in 2020 amid COVID-19

The league has clarified that if fans are allowed to attend any games this season they will have to do so wearing masks.

NFL, college football to increase strain on COVID-19 testing capacity

As sad and unacceptable as that state of affairs should be in a country with so many resources, the reality of this ongoing national health crisis is that testing still hasn’t met expectations — particularly those of sports leagues who did not think that availability and turnaround time would still be an issue four months into the pandemic.

And yet, as we all celebrate the progress of professional sports returning — The NBA and NHL bubbles are working! Here comes MLB! The NFL is getting ready for training camp! — our national testing failure is running straight into the reality that every league so desperately wanted to avoid.

No matter how you couch it or explain it, sports are cutting the line and using resources that seem to be scarce in too many areas of the country — an issue that will only get worse when the NFL starts eating up tens of thousands of tests per week to for the first couple weeks of training camp when players are tested daily.

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