New York Giants head coach John Harbaugh told Boomer and Gio on WFAN that he was “waffling” about whether or not to play quarterback Jaxson Dart on Friday night in the preseason finale against the New York Jets.
On Wednesday afternoon, Harbaugh told media that he would “just leave it up in the air right now.”
“We’ll see where we’re at,” Harbaugh said. “There would be things to be gained for those guys to play defensively as well, from a communication standpoint. But there’s risk. It’s just a balancing
act of what we gain the most from with the least amount of risk. That’s what we’ve got to figure out.”
One of the winningest NFL head coaches of all time, Harbaugh doesn’t need Big Blue View’s help making decisions. I am going to offer it, anyway.
Play the starters, John. At least on offense.
They don’t need to play into the third quarter, like many front-line players used to do in Week 3 when NFL teams played four preseason games. A quarter or a couple of series worth of work, though, should be beneficial.
Jaxson Dart is a second-year quarterback leading a team learning a new offense that is asking him to do things he did not do in college or as an NFL rookie. Practice is nice. Game reps are better.
If Dart and other front-line Giants who played in the Week 1 game against the Minnesota Vikings don’t play Friday night, they will go from Aug. 15 to Sept. 13 — the date of the season opener vs. the Dallas Cowboys — without game action.
Harbaugh, of course, understands the value of game reps. He knows going so long without game action is not ideal, especially for an offense like the Giants that is not already established.
I asked him early in the week if that played a role in how he would approach getting players ready for the season-opener.
“Most definitely. Most definitely. You have to factor that in and consider that,” Harbaugh said. “Playing together in a game, communicating together in a game, those things are valuable things that it’s better to have some experience with before you get into the game that counts, so to speak.
“So, yeah, that’s part of it.”
Harbaugh was asked again on Wednesday about players going that long without competition, with the exception of the single joint practice against the Miami Dolphins.
“Well, that’s a big factor. I think that’s exactly right. I mean, that is the factor,” Harbaugh said. “That’s the thing that – I don’t know if concern is the right word because a lot of teams do it, but you haven’t played in a game, now we’re going to go play in a game under the lights, high stakes, it’s going to be loud. All those things are going to factor in, and they haven’t been out there in that setting for a while. And the setting they were in isn’t anything like the one they’re going to be in either. So, that, to me, is your point. It’s exactly right. That is the factor.”
Harbaugh worked the Giants hard — by modern NFL standards — during the Giants’ time in West Virginia and for the first week or so after returning to New Jersey. He had said he was happy that the team was “calloused” and ready for NFL competition after that work.
Practices this week were all unpadded and were shorter than the 2½-hour workouts that were common earlier in the summer. There is more of a regular-season tempo to the work the Giants are doing now. The danger, of course, is that the Giants will lose the edge they have developed by the time the opener against Dallas rolls around.
The injury risk is also real, and why teams often opt not to play their best players in the final preseason game. Even if that impacts how well prepared they may be for the beginning of the season.
“You get some injuries, and you just try to make the argument that you go to the season with your best players healthy, that’s the most important thing,” Harbaugh said. “It’s a 17-game season, it’s a long season. Yes, you may not be as sharp as you’re going to be a couple games in, but it’s a long season. And the other team is in the same boat you’re in … People work back towards trying to avoid the injuries.”
Harbaugh said the other debate is over the value of a brief stint for players rather than extended work.
“That’s the other side of the argument now,” Harbaugh said. “How much are you going to play them? In the old days, they would be out there for three quarters in the third preseason game.
“How much is six plays, 10 plays, how much is that really worth? That’s part of the whole balancing act.”
The view here is that any game snaps for this still-developing Giants’ offense are good, valuable snaps. Provided, of course, nobody gets hurt.
