Good morning, New York Giants fans! Here are the stories as you start you Labor Day Weekend.
Gauging John Harbaugh’s impact and what to expect in Week 1 | The Athletic
Harbaugh has brought credibility to the organization. No one knows if this will ultimately work. Plenty of accomplished coaches have flamed out at later stops. But no other coach on the market this offseason could have generated this level of buy-in. A leader with a clear vision is leading the organization. Everyone believes in Harbaugh’s methods because he can point to his lengthy track record of success.
The Giants feel like a professional organization for the first time in a long time. How that translates to wins and losses remains to be seen, but Harbaugh’s impact has already been profound.
To Harbaugh’s credit: confidence. It used to drive me crazy at this time of year when general manager Joe Schoen and former coach Brian Daboll always ran from any expectation of winning games. That’s what made Harbaugh’s comments Wednesday about expecting to win so refreshing. Surely there has to be some anxiety about starting this new journey with a roster that clearly has flaws. But Harbaugh and the players seem genuinely eager to get started.
Is Jihad Ward coming back to the Giants?
2026 NFL season X factors: Key players for all 32 teams | ESPN.com
DT DJ Reader. Reader was once a premier run-stuffing nose tackle in this league, but his numbers are down over the past two seasons. His stop rate of 8.6% last season — the percentage of tackles that stopped the run for negative expected points, per NFL Next Gen Stats — was his lowest single-season mark since 2018. His stuff rate of 1.1% — the percentage of tackles that were for zero or fewer yards — was the lowest of his career. The splashy impact against the run is waning for the 32-year-old.
How many snaps does Reader have in him at his age, and can he achieve more impact against the run in a new defensive system in New York? Without a renaissance Reader season, I’m worried that we’ll see another season in which the Giants’ defense is too easy to run on for its pass rush to really matter.
Agent’s Take: Does Cam Skattebo need better advice after recent Giants antics? | CBSSports.com
When situations like these arise, an agent should provide counsel to their client. It’s an agent’s job to tell a client what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear. That isn’t always done. Some agents are reluctant to be candid for fear of being fired and instead become enablers.
Skattebo plays in the United States’ biggest media market, so any missteps are more magnified in New York. The good news for Skattebo is that the regular-season opener against the Dallas Cowboys is less than two weeks away. The attention will primarily be on how he performs in his return from the injury. If Skattebo can pick up from where he left off last season, then anything relating to the offseason or preseason will just be a minor blip on the radar screen in the grander scheme of things.
The Giants lineage and Ice Bowl pedigree Ben Mann brings as he tries to write his own Big Blue story | New York Post
It is probably a bit of hyperbole to suggest Ben Mann was born to be a Giant.
But there is Giants lineage coursing through his veins and NFL pedigree in his genes and there is a close family link that takes this otherwise nondescript 24-year-old — he’s a long snapper, for goodness’ sake — and vaults him into a space where few have entered.
Method to the madness: Reason why Giants limited recording at practice | USAToday.com
Entities are entitled to their “corporate secrets,” and the Giants are no different. Under new head coach John Harbaugh, there is much less media and fan access to practices, to the point where video, pictures, and the description of the action aren’t flowing freely on social media for the world to consume.
Some teams haven’t clamped down as hard yet, though. In a recent press conference, Miami Dolphins coach Jeff Hafley admitted that he has fallen victim to fans posting videos of his practices and other teams using that footage against him.
From Big Blue View
- 2 Giants make ESPN list of top players for 2026 season
- NY Giants’ Cam Skattebo addresses rumors of rift with John Harbaugh
- Ex-Giants Evan Neal, Azeez Ojulari sign with Las Vegas Raiders’ practice squad
- Watch a new episode of the NFC East Mixtape podcast!
- NY Giants vs. Cowboys, NFL Week 1 2026: Everything you need to know
- Get the best of Big Blue View on the new SB Nation app
This week’s opponent
- Von Miller on looming debut for the Cowboys: ‘My smile is back’ | DallasCowboys.com
- Cowboys first-rounder Caleb Downs living up to the hype | ESPN.com
- Dallas restructures deals for more salary cap room | Blogging the Boys
- Brian Schottenheimer says he’s “elated” to have Joe Milton on Cowboys’ practice squad | Pro Football Talk
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