These young NY Giants need to see more playing time after the bye

Following the bye week, the NY Giants should consider playing several young players, both to get experience and perhaps make an unlikely playoff push

The NY Giants are playing some of their best football of the season, entering this week’s bye, winners of two of their last three, including an upset victory over the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday afternoon.

In addition to the bye week coming at the perfect time to get some key players rested and healthy, perhaps even to get star running back Saquon Barkley back on the field as early as next Monday night against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the bye week gives the coaching staff an opportunity to evaluate who should and shouldn’t be playing quality snaps.

Entering Sunday’s action, the Giants trail the Dallas Cowboys by four games in the loss column — and don’t own the head-to-head tiebreaker having lost to the division rival earlier this season, New York now must straddle the line between giving young players experience and potentially digging out of an early-season hole towards a return trip to the postseason for the first time since 2016.

There are some players on the roster, who just might accomplish both tasks, if they were given more playing time over the second half of the season.

The NY Giants should give more playing time to these players after the bye week

NY Giants EDGE Quincy Roche

Roche seemingly has supplanted former pick Oshane Ximines, playing in place of the former third-round pick — who was a healthy scratch — against the Raiders on Sunday afternoon, and playing at a high level.

When given the chance, Roche has proven to be a disruptive player off the edge, and on Sunday afternoon sealed the NY Giants’ victory with a strip-sack of Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Derek Carr, in the game’s waning moments.

Over the past four weeks, Roche’s playing time has seen a steady uptick from 14 percent of the NY Giants’ defensive snaps against the Carolina Panthers, to playing 72 percent of the snaps on Sunday afternoon.

Claimed off waivers by the NY Giants this summer, after being chosen by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the sixth round of this spring’s NFL Draft, Roche has already produced 11 total tackles, two tackles for loss, one sack, and one fumble recovery while proving worthy of a starting role.