ESPN analyst Louis Riddick has announced what he believes are ‘two huge concerns’ for the New York Giants heading into this season.
The New York Giants are in something of a grey area when it comes to their rebuilding as a franchise. They are entering the final year of quarterback Daniel Jones’ contract after taking him in the 2019 NFL Draft with the 6th pick to replace quarterback Eli Manning.
And having announced that they will not be taking up the 5th-year option on his rookie contract, this could very well be the last year that he is a member of Big Blue unless he has a miraculous season and convinces them otherwise.
Meanwhile, they appear to be building for whatever the next stage of their process is with their actions this offseason, appointing head coach Brian Daboll to replace Joe Judge whilst also using the 2022 NFL Draft to take two players in the first round in the form of defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux and offensive tackle Evan Neal with the #5 and #7 pick respectively.
Caught in the middle
As a result they are both approaching the end of one cycle and the beginning of another at the same time, but what that means for this season we’ll just have to wait and see, but hopefully it will be better than what they have managed to produce in recent seasons, that has seen them fail to finish with a winning record since 2016.
If they are to do that though, at least according to Riddick, a lot of that is going to have to come as a result of the two big players in the backfield, quarterback Jones and running back Saquon Barkley. In an article for ESPN.com when talking about what his biggest worry was for the Giants, Riddick claimed that his concern came from what the new head coach would be able to do with their two primary offensive weapons:
“Can Daboll get out of Jones what none of his other coaches has been able to up to this point? Can running back Saquon Barkley still be even a fraction of what he showed as a rookie in 2018, the last time he played a full season without missing a game? Those are two huge concerns.”
A legitimate cause for concern
The numbers on both men certainly are alarming to say the least, with Jones averaging less than 3,000 passing yards per season and throwing just 45 touchdowns against 29 interceptions, whilst Barkley, who won the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year award in 2018, has failed to find that form again, not helped by a season-ending injury he picked up early in his third year, putting up just 856 total yards in 2021.
Daboll has certainly worked his magic before, helping to turn Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen into one of the best in the business and engineer an offense that was more than Super Bowl calibre, and he’s going to need every bit of that magic to rub off again if he’s going to have any success with the Giants.