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The New York Giants are playoff-bound following a 38-10 beatdown of the Indianapolis Colts in Week 17. They are locked into the No. 6 seed, meaning the team has nothing to gain from playing their starters against the Philadelphia Eagles in their regular-season finale on January 8 at Lincoln Financial Field.
Giants head coach Brian Daboll addressed the issue of next week’s snap counts immediately after Sunday’s victory, telling reporters he hadn’t really thought about resting his starters. His goal? “I’m just going to enjoy this one right here,” Daboll said. “Go home and smoke a cigar and hang out with my family.”
One day later, Daboll provided no new update on his plan for Week 18. He is preparing the Giants to play the Eagles, and that begins with a strong week of practice. Starters or backups be damned.
“I’d say we’ll talk about it and do what’s best for the team. It’s early Monday,” Daboll said, via NJ Advance Media. “We’ll go out there and try to have a good week of practice, prepare like we normally do and then decide what we want to do relative to who’s playing, who’s not playing, and whatever we think is best for our team, that’s what we’ll end up doing.”
Fletcher Cox Addresses the Issue of Rest vs. Rust
Defensive tackle Fletcher Cox was asked whether he would prefer to play next week or take a seat on the bench and let the Eagles’ backups decide their playoff fate. It stands to reason the Giants will be throwing their backups out there with nothing meaningful left to accomplish.
“Oh, I’d rather play every week just to stay in rhythm but obviously it’s always the coach’s decision. We didn’t get the job done today so obviously, we have to game plan for the Giants,” Cox said. “They’re a really good team that we played a couple of weeks ago so they’ll be ready. We’ll be ready and we’ll be playing for a really, really important game for us.”
Remember, Philadelphia needs to beat New York to secure both the NFC East crown and the No. 1 overall seed in the NFC. There is a good chance that they’ll play all their starters, including injured quarterback Jalen Hurts. And, as a few fans on Twitter pointed out, the Eagles might want to defend Nick Foles’ honor after Giants pass rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux knocked the Colts quarterback out of the game and mocked him during a post-sack celebration.
The Jalen Hurts’ Question Looms Large
The decision on what to do about Jalen Hurts is the biggest question mark looming over what had been a season devoid of adversity. That is, until Hurts suffered a sprained SC joint in his right shoulder. He’s missed the past two games as the team turned the keys to the offense over to Gardner Minshew. It hasn’t gone the way they drew it up and all indications point to Hurts returning in the regular-season finale.
According to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, Hurts will be ready to go versus New York. “They do believe that Jalen Hurts, their starting quarterback, will be healthy enough to play in that game. Which is a very good sign … He is expected to be ready for Week 18.”
Head coach Nick Sirianni made it clear after Sunday’s loss that if Hurts gets medically cleared, he will be the starting quarterback.
“Yeah, if Jalen is able to go, he’ll go,” Sirianni said.
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