Giants show there's fight in these 'DAWGs'
Players scuffle during the New York Giants Training Camp against Detroit at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center in East Rutherford, NJ, Monday, August 5, 2024 Credit: Ed Murray
There still are plenty of reasons to be skeptical regarding these Giants.
They are a team banking on a quarterback returning from an ACL tear and regaining what is routinely cited as his “2022 form” (even as that somewhat mythical bar of a season consisted of him throwing a mere 15 touchdown passes).
They dumped their most dynamic playmaker into the laps of a division rival in the offseason and are counting on a rookie wide receiver to bring the wow factor to the offense.
After prioritizing the addition of an outside cornerback in the months-long roster-building process, they made no splash signing and instead are relying on players who weren’t good enough to start for them last year to suddenly become suitable for the job.
The offensive line should be better — mostly because it couldn’t be worse — but it feels as if it is one more injury away from collapse.
The edge rushing should improve, thanks to a blockbuster trade for what seems to be the team’s first true difference-maker at the position since Jason Pierre-Paul’s Fourth of July party nearly a decade ago, but the depth up front, particularly in the middle, remains a question.
Throw in an overhauled defensive coaching staff with a brand- new philosophy, a shakeup in the hierarchy of the offensive play-calling, and the first whiffs of smoke smoldering from the seat where the head coach plants himself each day, and this 2024 campaign that begins in earnest in a little more than a month doesn’t exactly scream with promise and optimism.
On Monday, though, in a joint practice with a Lions team that many believe can represent the NFC in this year’s Super Bowl, the Giants flashed something that could alter the gloomy on-paper projections sure to accompany them into the regular season.
They showed some fight.
They were not the better, more talented team on the fields in East Rutherford, but that didn’t stop them from playing with the confidence, moxie and spunk of title contenders. When the Lions pushed, the Giants shoved back. When the Lions got frisky, the Giants refused to take it. And there even were times when the Giants struck first.
A year ago, when the Giants visited the Lions for similar workouts, they were on their heels and ill-equipped for the intensity and seriousness that Detroit clearly demonstrated, which would serve them well during their run deep into the postseason come January. The Giants, meanwhile, seemed straitjacketed by that lack of fire the entire season as they plodded through a disappointing year with increasingly slumped shoulders and sagging morale.
This time, though, in their first appearance in the competitive public football forum, the Giants brought that look. That Eye of the Lions was theirs as well.
It seemed as if it was an organizational reawakening. And it wasn’t just the usual suspects — linemen and receivers and defensive backs — mixing it up.
No one is surprised when the big sweaty galoots on the line of scrimmage tire of each others’ shenanigans on such a sweltering day and start swinging at each other. Wide receivers and cornerbacks generally have the kinds of arrogant temperaments that lead to disagreements too, and their quick shoves sometimes light fuses that clear benches. But the powder keg inside the Giants went beyond those normal flashpoints.
Daniel Jones, sporting a camp beard that works well in covering his aw-shucks baby face, unapologetically was in the middle of several of the fiery scrums and dust-ups that erupted between the teams. At one point, he had to be held back from the action by one of the coaches.
Speaking of whom, Brian Daboll, who had for the most part spent this camp demonstrating a temper as under control as his new waistline, was back in his red-faced, bulging-eyed, Sunday afternoon antics, barking not only at his own players but the Lions he thought crossed lines of preordained rules for the workout on several occasions.
Even Giants general manager Joe Schoen, usually little more than a spectator at soirees such as these, was spotted on the field among the chaos. He was separating players and ultimately trying to maintain peace, but he still was there in the middle of all the clawing and churning. Perhaps he doesn’t want to be typecast after a logical, level-headed performance in the “Hard Knocks” biopic he starred in earlier this summer.
Several Giants players and coaches recently have been spotted wearing T-shirts with the team’s acronym du’jour, and the letters have been painted on the walls inside the team’s facility as well: DAWG, which stands for Discipline, Attitude, Will and Grit.
Woof, did the Giants ever come out like barking, snarling, drooling DAWGs on Monday.
It’s way too much to ask for the events of a sweltering day in early August to set the tone for the next five or six months of football. But if the Giants can maintain the level of intensity they brought with them onto their practice fields on Monday, if they can harness it in a way that it doesn’t become an impediment in the form of reckless play and irrational penalties while also figuring out how to keep that pilot light flickering, they might just be able to overcome at least some of the legitimate underestimations they carry elsewhere.
At the very least, it would give us one fewer thing to be skeptical about.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
