NY Giants wisely elect to go with 90-man training camp roster
The NY Giants became the first known team to elect to use a 90-man training camp roster on Monday, wisely getting a look at as many players as possible.
The NFL and NFLPA have been hard at work over the last week hammering out all kinds of provisions to try to make everyone happy, and luckily for the NY Giants, one of those allowed for teams to decide whether or not they would bring 90 players or 80 players to training camp.
According to Jordan Raanan of ESPN, the NY Giants have officially decided to go with that 90-man limit.
While most teams are making cuts to get to 80 players, the Giants will go with Option 2 and a 90-man roster to start training camp, per source. I believe first known team to go this route. Giants will have to split into 2 groups, practice separately and use separate locker rooms.
— Jordan Raanan (@JordanRaanan) July 27, 2020
We’ve already discussed on this site why lowering the limit to 80 players could have a devastating effect on the NY Giants, as a rebuilding team with an entirely new coaching staff is going to want to get a look at as many young players as they possibly can.
Now, guys like the ‘Big 3 of undrafted wide receivers’ – Binjimen Victor, Austin Mack, and Derrick Dillon, will assuredly get at least a few weeks to show what they can do as the NY Giants won’t be faced with the challenge of lowering the roster size to 80 until August 16th.
According to BigBlueUnitd.com, the NY Giants roster size stood at 87 at the time of this decision, and adding Markus Golden and kicker Chandler Catanzaro into the fray puts them at 89. They’ll likely be shopping the waiver wire from all the teams that are electing to go with only 80 to fill that lost spot.
Why this can work for the NY Giants
Also previously discussed here, the NY Giants have a unique setup in terms of having their practice facility so close to their home base and stadium. As a result, they have more than enough space to properly socially distance even with the ‘extra’ 10 players.
The teams that are electing to go with only 80 players are obviously fearing that the more bodies they have around could lead to more positive COVID tests and potentially spreading the virus, and that’s a risk Big Blue is surely taking here.
Next. Giants should approach Markus Golden about contract extension. dark
But, again, since they have the entire MetLife Stadium and Quest Diagnostics Center to work with, they have the real estate to properly make this a true ‘split squad’ type of deal and if it’s managed correctly this should only turn out to be a positive for the G-Men.