New York Giants head coach John Harbaugh told media in Philadelphia on Sunday night that if the team makes a move before Tuesday’s NFL trade deadline it would have to “make sense short-term and long-term.”
Harbaugh went even further in a post-game chat with Sports Illustrated NFL insider Albert Breer . Here is what Breer wrote about the Giants’ intentions at the trade deadline.
Saying the Giants have been active on the phones with other teams would be like saying a 9-year-old is looking forward to
Christmas. They made an offer to the Colts on Jonathan Taylor, they called the Ravens on Derrick Henry, they called the Titans on Jeffery Simmons (more than once) and inquired about guys who were never available. They dove hard into the defensive tackle market, working the Colts on DeForest Buckner (who wanted to go back to San Francisco and had his wishes honored), Grover Stewart and rising star Adetomiwa Adebawore (who was since extended); and the Patriots on Christian Barmore.
All of that’s enough to give any playoff-starved fan of Big Blue a sugar high. And yet, they’ll tell you this isn’t about going all in on anything, happy as they are with where the team is.
No, under Harbaugh, and with holdover GM Joe Schoen, this is now their default setting. Which, they’ll tell you, has little to do with adjusting any sort of preseason expectation.
“No, that’s not how we look at winning,” Harbaugh texted me from the team bus, heading back to New Jersey on Sunday night. “You’re never ONE thing away. This is not addition and subtraction. The math is running on multiple levels of formulas and algorithms and humanity. You have to assess your options and opportunities. Seek value. What makes your team better shorter- and long-term and avoid what hinders your team, even in possibility.
“It’s a case-by-case decision regarding options. The work is on finding and creating the options. That’s where the stones have to get turned over. We are building day-by-day for what’s coming tomorrow and in the future BOTH.”
Which means not going all in on one thing, but being aggressive in looking at everything.
“Always,” he continued. “Every single day. All the time. It’s not dependent on how close you think you are.”
Will all that turning over of stones lead the Giants to making any moves? The clock is ticking as we all wait to find out.
