Giants at Patriots Preseason Preview

For the first time in seven months, the New York Giants are about to play a professional football game. Tonight at 7:00 pm ET, Big Blue will face off against the Patriots in New England for their first of three preseason games. Here’s your guide for what to look for during tonight’s action.

How Much Run Will The Starters Get?

Head coach Brian Daboll has stated he plans to play all of his players against the Patriots. Presumably, that includes the starters as well. If Big Blue’s projected starters really do get a solid series or two before getting pulled for the backups, that will be the closest thing to a sneak preview of what the Giants could look like come the regular season.

Reports of quarterback Daniel Jones and the first-team offense’s performance so far in training camp have been mixed. So it’s hard to blame fans for being anxious to see this new offense operating with a new system deal with live competition. Teams always use basic, vanilla playbooks during the preseason, so whatever the Giants’ offense puts forth tonight won’t be a genuine representation of how they’ll operate once the games start to count. Still, even the bare bones of this new offense will be interesting to see. It’ll also be interesting to see Jones’ level of comfort within this offense, and therefore how much more he’ll need to adapt to the new scheme.

The defensive starters’ performance won’t be nearly as intriguing. We know the calling cards of new defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale’s scheme (blitzing, designer pressures, and man coverage), but it’s most unlikely he’ll run anything other that your standard cover-3 or cover-2 in the preseason.

Roster Spot Battles

The starters will get most of the attention, but the battles for roster spots at the bottom of the depth chart is what the preseason is really all about. It’s still early in training camp, so depth spots are still up for grabs at nearly every position.

At receiver, it’s still an open competition between Darius Slayton, Richie James, C.J. Board, and David Sills for the final couple of roster openings. Whichever player amongst them shows out tonight will put themselves in good position to eventually make the team.

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Another battle to watch is at EDGE, where Quincy Roche and Oshane Ximines are likely contending for the same one and only roster spot. Ximines fell out of favor with the old coaching staff and lost reps to Roche last season. But reports are that XImines is having a strong camp. Tracking who gets more playing time, especially early, could show which player the new coaching staff is inclined to keep.

Depth spots at offensive line, linebacker, and the secondary are all still available, so keep an eye on who stands out at those postions as well once the reserves are in.

All in all, whether this game actually matters or not, it’ll be refreshing to see the Giants playing football again.

– Ryan Cuneo is the Managing Editor of Full Press Giants. He covers the New York Giants. Like and follow on Follow @ryan_cuneo Follow @FullPressGiants and Facebook.