NY Giants face critical questions about the future that must be answered over the second half of this season following a loss that dropped the Giants to 1-7.
The NY Giants insist they are making progress, even though after falling to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 25-23 Monday night they are entrenched in the NFC East cellar with a 1-7 record through the first half of the season.
“I see a lot of improvement,” Giants head coach Joe Judge said following Monday’s game. “I like the way our guys are working day by day, sticking together, we have a good foundation of the culture in this building right now, and we have a lot of really good guys to build with.”
Giants safety Jabrill Peppers was much more blunt, following the Giants’ third loss in the last four weeks in a game they were leading in the fourth quarter.
“Personally, I don’t even care about the record,” Peppers said. “If you watch our tape against the teams that we’ve played, it a play here or a play there. It’s not like we’re going out there and getting our ass kicked.”
The harsh reality for the Giants, even in the woebegone NFC East, is that this organization remains in the infancy of would possibly remains a multi-season rebuild.
With questions abound on both sides of the football, and potentially an eight-game audition for Jones to convince the Giants not to go shopping for a quarterback such as Ohio State’s Justin Fields in the 2021 NFL Draft, the final eight games are more about evaluating this roster than competing for the postseason.
Likewise, there is uncertainty abound over whether general manager Dave Gettleman will be entrusted to see this rebuild through after winning just 10 of his first 40 games, this feels like an appropriate time to take stock of just who should stay and who should go for the Giants at season’s end.
Scroll through for a breakdown of every starting player and whether they should stay and remain a part of the Giants’ rebuild, or need to be dumped prior to 2021: