Giants’ age-old problem: Protecting Eli, NFL’s new one: Protecting everyone

It seems sometimes that we have been talking about the Giants’ offensive line, and its need to do a better job protecting

since the last time the Giants won the Super Bowl.

But a fair question to ask is why anybody would think that anything was going to dramatically change this season with basically the same cast of characters?

Of course the Giants aren’t as bad as they looked against the Cowboys, especially without No. 13.

Sometimes you think he’s as important to Big Blue as his buddy is to the Cavs.

No one knows what is going to happen in the NFC East the rest of the way because no one is still quite sure whether is going to end up doing six games of time or not, a big deal because Elliott is one of the handful of most valuable players in the entire sport.

But after watching the first game, you sort of come away with two big questions, both of which may get answered on Monday night against the Lions:

One, who’s going to run the ball this season?

Two, are you starting to think that Ben McAdoo’s offense and Eli’s skillset might not be a match made in heaven?

of the beauties of the 16-game season in pro football, incidentally, is how big the second game becomes if you lose the first one. By the time the Yankees get to the playoffs,

will be going to his bullpen if there’s trouble in the fourth.

most chilling paragraph you will read this weekend is high up in

fine piece about these new football helmets made by a Seattle-based company called Vicis, a helmet some NFL players are wearing already. This is what Futterman writes: “Executives and players say NFL locker rooms are largely populated by men who believe long-term brain damage is something that will happen to someone else and who fear the consequences in any dip in performance due to an equipment switch.”

My new novel for young readers, “Lone Stars,” happens to deal with youth football and what it is like for parents and players to live in the world of what I call the “new information” about concussions and the long-term effects of head injuries in football.

The old coach in the book, a former NFL player, is showing the first signs memory loss and confusion, after a career in the old days of sticking his head in there, because that’s what tough guys were taught and told to do.

Well, Matt Futterman’s piece about helmets is more new information, and worth reading, absolutely.

It is part of as important a sports conversation as we can have these days. I’m hopeful that the Falcons aren’t going to go through the Packers’ defense on Sunday night, in a rematch of the last NFC Championship Game, like they’re playing against a flag-football team. Finally today: Happy Birthday to our oldest child, You always hear about how fast they grow up.

But, man oh man, they grow up great, too, the way this young man has.

I told him the other day: He knows who he is. The world continues to find out.

“The Sports Reporters” is now back in business as a twice-a-week podcast, with

and me and a lot of the old gang. Just go to the podcast section of Apple Podcasts and search for “The Sports Reporters” to subscribe. We do new ones every Friday and Monday. Same conversation as always, new format.