Saquon Barkley, Kenny Golladay ruled out for MNF game in Kansas City

The Giants still are hopeful Saquon Barkley and Kenny Golladay will be on the field, only now they are holding out that optimism for next Sunday.

The two playmakers were ruled out for Monday night’s game in Kansas City, meaning they will miss a third straight game with ankle and knee injuries, respectively. They spent this week working with trainers on the side while most of the rest of the roster practiced, never once participating in any team drills.

Joe Judge said they are "trending in the right direction," but neither recovered quickly enough for this game.

"We’ll see where it goes next week," Judge said.

The Giants play the Raiders at MetLife Stadium on Nov. 7 and have a bye the week after that. At the very least they should be ready to go by the time the Giants return from that break and play the Bucs in their next Monday night game on Nov. 22.

This Monday night game, though, is over for them.

Three other players – linebackers Lorenzo Carter and Carter Coughlin and defensive back Nate Ebner, all with ankle injuries – were also ruled out on Saturday.

There is glass half empty-half full aspect to the Giants’ final injury report of the week, however. It appears they will be getting back two of the four offensive playmakers who were absent from last week’s win over the Panthers. Wide receivers Sterling Shepard (hamstring) and Kadarius Toney (ankle) were listed as questionable for the game in Kansas City. Toney will likely require a pregame workout before he is activated, but if he performs anywhere close to how he did in the snippet of practice open to the media on Saturday, there will not be much deliberation over that.

At one point the rookie first-round pick jumped up and made a one-handed catch while pirouetting in the air, landing without hardly breaking his stride. It was just a warmup toss that he brought in from Daniel Jones, but it was the kind of play that is indicative of the electricity Toney can bring to the Giants’ offense . . . when he is on the field.

Toney could even display those skills on special teams.

"You watch him catch the ball, catch a slant, he’s hard to bring down," said special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey, who has been itching to put Toney under punts all season to no avail as of yet and has a vacancy there this week with the loss of Jabrill Peppers to a torn ACL. "Guys like that are a threat … We see how dynamic 89 is when he gets the ball in his hand. Regardless when he gets the ball in his hand is, to me, that doesn’t make any difference and I’m sure Joe (Judge) feels the same way."

The biggest way for him to do that Monday, though, remains on offense. Toney aggravated his ankle injury in the game against the Rams two weeks ago, lasting just eight plays. He caught three passes in that short time. The Giants had planned on using him in a number of different ways in that game, as a receiver and a runner, and maybe even a passer. They never got the opportunity to do so.

Those plays could easily be folded into the gameplan for Monday’s contest.

One thing is for certain, though: Barkley and Golladay will not be.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

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.