The New York Giants are preparing for their preseason opener against the Buffalo Bills, scheduled for Saturday at 1 p.m. The team will hold practices on Wednesday and Thursday before traveling to Buffalo on Friday.
Head coach Brian Daboll spoke with the media via Zoom on Tuesday, addressing questions about whether starters would play in the upcoming game. “I think it’s different for every team,” Daboll said about the philosophy. “I’ve done a lot of research in terms of teams in the last few years, coaches, veteran coaches, what they’ve done. I worked for some people that have had pretty good success in how we did it. I don’t think there’s one right formula. Play them, not play them. I think you need to do what’s best for your football team. So, is it a series? Is it two series? Is it a half? You talk about that as a staff as we get going. Take a look at the practices that we’ve had. There’s no substitute for playing the game. You have to tackle. You don’t do a whole lot (in practice). Some people do some live tackling, but it’s not much.
“There’s no substitute for a quarterback when he knows he can get hit. There’s no substitute for an offensive guard cleaning the pocket or being very physical in the run game in gang tackling. That’s the game of football. So you try to balance that with what you think is best for the football team. You’re always going to have injury risk. In practice, you have injury risk. But we’ll sit down and do what we think is best for our football team. If that’s playing, it’s playing. If it’s not playing as much, it’s not playing as much. We’ve had a good camp to this point. I think we’ve got a lot accomplished. It’s been a physical camp. And we’ll continue to have a physical camp here leading up to the first game.”
The Giants also released their first unofficial depth chart of the season this week; however, it may change before games begin and does not include players currently on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list.
On Monday afternoon, roster changes were made due to injuries at running back and linebacker positions: Jonathan Ward was signed at running back and K.J. Cloyd joined as linebacker.
Ward has played five seasons in the NFL with stints on several teams including Arizona Cardinals, Tennessee Titans and Pittsburgh Steelers; last year he appeared in four games with Pittsburgh and contributed mainly on special teams.
Before his professional career began as an undrafted rookie with Arizona’s practice squad in 2020, Ward played college football at Central Michigan where he accumulated over 2,500 rushing yards and scored 28 touchdowns across four years.
K.J. Cloyd returns to New York after previously signing last August before being released ahead of final roster cuts; most recently he spent time on Denver Broncos’ practice squad.
These signings followed moves involving Rushawn Baker being waived/injured and Ty Summers placed on injured reserve.
Running back Eric Gray remains sidelined due to a knee injury while rookie Cam Skattebo is considered day-to-day; Tyrone Tracy Jr., Devin Singletary and Dante Miller are currently healthy options available at running back.
