Joshua Kalu

Three New York Giants players headed to injured reserve list

by
New York Giants, Kyle Murphy

There’s been some concerns about the New York Giants having a thin roster at some positions, and that won’t be aided by the team losing three players to the injured reserve following their first preseason game. While the Giants lost the game on the field, these injuries are a larger concern than the result as all of the players involved will miss major time because of them.

The players in question are offensive lineman Kyle Murphy, linebacker T.J. Brunson, and cornerback Joshua Kalu. Murphy is the most recent player to be placed on the IR list, after Kalu and Brunson were placed on it more immediately.

Based on the current rules, the Giants can bring unlimited players back from the IR list but only players that are on the 53 man roster following the September 1st cuts are eligible to return. Judging from this, it looks like these three players are likely out for the year.

Brunson has an ACL tear, which is well known for being a long term injury and is the same one that has kept Saquon Barkley out for the past year. Kalu has a torn pectoral muscle, which isn’t as long term of an injury but can still take months to recover from. Murphy, who was competing for a place on the roster as an offensive lineman, has an ankle injury with a less clear recovery time.

All in all the injuries are a loss to the team’s depth on both sides of the ball and it’s likely we don’t see any of these players back this season. Given that, the Giants may just have to be more active than even earlier predictions expected when it comes to filling out their roster with free agents.

New York Giants: Logan Ryan leads DBs in Tampa training

by
New York Giants, Logan Ryan

This will be another strange offseason for everyone. The NFL is still affected by COVID-19 and earlier in the year, the New York Giants joined the teams that would skip voluntary workouts due to the risk of the pandemic. However, that doesn’t mean that training is going to come to a complete halt leading up to the season.

While the team’s rookies and free agent tryouts performed at rookie mini-camp, safety Logan Ryan was making sure that the secondary also got in some practice. In this case, the location happened to be somewhere warmer than East Rutherford: Tampa.

Upgrades to the secondary for 2021

It’s important that the Giants secondary gets some experience early on working together because it’s going to be a different group this season. The biggest addition, obviously, is Adoree’ Jackson. With the addition, the Giants finally have a number two cornerback that they can be proud of and he’ll join existing corner James Bradberry, who already had a reputation from last season for locking up the other team’s best weapons.

The Giants will also have last year’s draft pick Xavier McKinney around from the start in 2021, assuming he can avoid picking up another injury in the offseason. While McKinney showed promise, he was only able to get on the field last year by the time things were already headed downhill.

The position group has further depth than it did in previous seasons, too – Jackson is not the only Titan to join them. They also picked up his former teammate from Tennessee, Joshua Kalu, after he finished with a career high 16 tackles.

Players don’t always adapt right away to having new teammates, so it’s good to see the Giants secondary working out as a group already. It may pay dividends later, if it helps the Giants and the secondary specifically avoid another slow start with a number of early season losses.