SAYING THERE’S A CHANCE
Jones not ruled out for Sunday, yet
Daniel Jones auditioned for Joe Judge on a back field Thursday but sat out practice for a second straight day to rest his right hamstring strain.
Jones looked good dropping back, stutter stepping and throwing to trainers with Judge standing a few yards behind and watching. But there is a huge difference between a quarterback throwing alone versus planting his full body weight on his back leg in a collapsing pocket.
This does not officially rule out Jones yet for Sunday’s game in Seattle, where the Giants (4-7) will travel to take on the Seahawks (83). It’s still possible he plays.
The Giants’ plan the entire time has been to ramp up his workload gradually this week. So he worked inside with the trainers Wednesday, took the field alone on Thursday, and still has today to prove the hamstring is strong enough to compete with the team.
“We had positive reports on Daniel (Wednesday),” Judge said before practice. “Obviously we have to kind of see a little bit more from him (Thursday). The plan is to get him out there with the trainers, move him around a little bit, throw a little bit, see where that progresses to and what that allows him to do later in practice today or maybe what that shows what we can do with him (today).”
“Again, there are still a lot of questions more than answers right now,” Judge said. “I know he’s doing everything he can to get back and be with the team. He’s preparing tirelessly, he’s in the building, he’s doing everything he can like it would be any other day. I know mentally where he’s at. We just have to check physically where he’s at and make sure we make the right decision for him.”
Veteran backup Colt McCoy, 34, continued to take the majority of first-team snaps in the meantime, and for now he projects as Sunday’s starter for the Giants, who sit atop the NFC East standings with the tiebreaker over Washington (4-7).
“I would just say we’re all preparing for whatever happens,” wideout Golden Tate said when asked about how Jones looked.
Practice squad QB Clayton Thorson continued to work behind McCoy, and Tate admitted he is one of the possible emergency QBs on the roster if needed — though it’s not as desirable a job as it may seem.
“It’s one of those things that sounds really cool, like guys just talking about it not thinking it’s realistically going to happen,” Tate said. “But then once it becomes potentially realistic, you’re like ‘ Oh, oh. This could be scary.’ I think I’m one of the candidates that could go out there if something were to happen, God forbid. I’m not sure what any of us emergency quarterbacks need to do to prepare for that big moment. We’ll cross that bridge if we get there.”
Asked if he were ready in Cincinnati to play quarterback if something had happened to McCoy last Sunday, Tate smiled and said: “I would say I was ready but I was not prepared. Hopefully it doesn’t get there, but I guess that’s part of being resilient. We’ll figure something out.”
Elsewhere on the injury front, rookie outside linebacker Cam Brown (illness) was added to Thursday’s report. The Giants can’t keep losing edge rushers. They are down their top four from the season due to injuries (Lorenzo Carter, Kyler Fackrell, Oshane Ximines) and a trade (Markus Golden).
Still limited were wideouts Darius Slayton (shoulder/foot) and Sterling Shepard (toe/shoulder), safety Nate Ebner (knee) and linebacker David Mayo (knee).