PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
Landon Collins will need to have a second surgery on his broken right arm that will sideline the Giants’ stud strong safety until the start of training camp.
Collins’ arm, which he broke in a Week 16 loss at Arizona, is not healing as doctors hoped from his late December surgery, so he’ll undergo another surgery soon, the Daily News has confirmed.
NFL Network first reported the issue with Collins’ recovery and the plans for a second operation “to plate the break again.” Collins’ timetable for recovery from the second surgery is about six to eight weeks to return to “full football activity,” which will sideline him from spring workouts but enable him to return for camp in late July.
This is a surprise especially after Collins said on a Monday conference call that his “arm is doing great” and that the rehab process “was very minim(al)” and “everything is back to 100 percent.”
The Giants will host the Cleveland Browns to open their 2018 preseason schedule, then visit the Detroit Lions and face the Jets as visitors at MetLife Stadium, before hosting the New England Patriots in the finale.
That means new Giants coach Pat Shurmur will debut against the only other team he’s ever led as head coach in Cleveland (2011-12), in a battle of the NFL clubs that currently hold the top two picks in this month’s NFL Draft.
Then in Week 2 of the preseason Shurmur will take on Lions first-year coach Matt Patricia in the battle of Giants head coaching candidates from the search to replace Ben McAdoo this past January.
The NFL didn’t announce the specific dates and times of most games Wednesday, only the preseason game weeks that the Giants will face the Browns (Aug. 9-13), Lions (Aug. 16-20), Jets (Aug. 23-26) and Patriots (Aug. 30-31).
The Giants typically play their preseason finale 10 days before the first Sunday of the NFL regular season, which would put Giants-Patriots at Aug. 30.
This will be the 50th straight preseason that the Giants and Jets will square off in what the teams now bill as the MetLife Bowl but of course was not long ago known as the Snoopy Bowl. It also will be the 14th straight year that the Giants and Patriots will close their preseasons by facing each other.
The Giants went 2-2 in last year’s preseason in McAdoo’s second and final year as head coach, losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Browns but defeating the Jets and Patriots. Odell Beckham Jr. badly sprained his ankle in Cleveland on Monday Night Football and would never be the same, eventually breaking the same ankle in Week 5 of the regular season. AP