EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.—One of the NFL’s flagship franchises is now on its fifth head coach in eight seasons, and third general manager in six seasons. And yet, this year does feel different, in that, finally, ownership (maybe for the first time … ever?) wiped the slate clean and didn’t reach back into its past to find people to run its football operation. The Mara family have also allowed new coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen to build from zero. How does it look at the ground floor? Let’s dive in …
1) Running back Saquon Barkley has impressed through camp—his burst and acceleration are back to where the Giants had hoped they would be, and in time for a fork-in-the-road sort of season for the No. 2 pick in the 2018 NFL draft. One other nice backfield development in camp has come in the form of unexpected depth behind Barkley, with hard-running backs Antonio Williams and Gary Brightwell putting together solid summers, and bidding for roles in the offense.
2) The receiver group is a little scattershot and, as a result, you could make an argument that rookie Wan’dale Robinson might already be their player at the position. Brian Daboll’s got a readymade role for him too, one that’s not far off from the one wide receivers Isaiah McKenzie and Cole Beasley played for Daboll in Buffalo, or the one that Julian Edelman and Danny Amendola filled while he was in New England.
3) The Giants’ defensive front looked really good, with Dexter Lawrence (he’s been a monster this summer) and Leonard Williams adapting nicely to new defensive coordinator Wink Martindale’s scheme. 2021 second-round pick Azeez Ojulari has also taken another step on the edge. Plus, before he got hurt, Kayvon Thibodeaux was headed in the right direction, and that goes beyond the on-field stuff. The team thinks he has the makeup of not just a good player (he drew Von Miller comps internally), but a good person too. The Giants saw the character flags that Thibodeaux faced pre-draft as NFL teams being troubled more with the changing face of today’s college athlete (sometimes pulling down six or seven figures in NIL money, with handlers around them to manage it) than coming from Thibodeaux himself. Four months in, they feel good they were right.
4) There were some existing building blocks here that the Giants’ new regime really likes. One is Andrew Thomas, who’s been rock solid at left tackle. Another is second-year safety Xavier McKinney, who’s already got the green dot—meaning he’ll be the one relaying Martindale’s calls to the huddle. It’s an important role in that defense specifically, one that was bestowed on Eric Weddle and Chuck Clark in Baltimore, so McKinney getting it this early in his career is significant.
5) This won’t be an overnight job. I believe it’s analogous, in fact, to Daboll’s first year in Buffalo in 2018, during which the Bills took on a boatload of dead-cap charges and injected youth all over the roster. Likewise, the Giants are carrying over $30 million in dead cap this year, and are going young in key spots, and that’s why even though there are needs on the roster (corner is one), I wouldn’t expect them to be active on the trade market in the coming weeks, or push anymore money forward into future years for the sake of doing something now. That, honestly, is probably the sort of approach the Giants have needed someone to take for some time now.
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