–Head coach Pat Shurmur was asked point blank if he definitely thought that quarterback Eli Manning would continue to be the team’s starting signal-caller.
“Yes, I do,” he said. “I think Eli will be our quarterback. He has been, and he’ll continue to be here.”
But what neither the question or answer clarified is if the 37-year-old Manning would be the starting quarterback beyond this weekend’s game against Washington, a game that is coming up on a short week following the Monday night loss to the Falcons and a game in which it doesn’t make sense just yet to pull Manning for rookie Kyle Lauletta.
The truth is with the Giants standing at 1-6 and their season going nowhere fast, the team would be foolish to not take a look at Lauletta, whom they drafted in the fifth round this year, so that they have an idea of what he potentially brings to the table.
The Giants, remember, made that mistake last year by not giving Davis Webb any meaningful in-season snaps even though their season was over by the halfway mark. In not knowing what they had in Webb, the team, in part, chose to stick with Manning as their best option and go all in with him, hoping that by switching up the offensive line and the offensive system, the offense might once again flourish.
It hasn’t worked out that way. The offensive line, which has seen three combinations in seven games, remains inconsistent, raising questions as to whether a more mobile quarterback might be better able to function behind the unit.
If that is the plan — and it certainly would make sense — such a move to see what Lauletta brings probably won’t be made until after the bye week not only because of the short work week, but to also minimize the potential for distraction in a locker room that Shurmur is trying to get believing that no one is throwing in the towel just yet.
“What we do is do everything in our power to win each week,” Shurmur said. “Everything in our power to win each week, but that’s also certainly something (general manager) Dave (Gettleman) considers moving forward, and certainly I’m involved in those conversations – ‘OK, this is how we’re going to do it.'”
At the same time, it would be hard to imagine Shurmur, who has said he wants to give younger players on the roster who are working to earn snaps a chance to show what they have in games that opportunity, including Lauletta.
–The rebuild is officially on, but don’t tell head coach Pat Shurmur or his players that’s the case.
“That’s not the narrative – throwing in the towel,” Shurmur said earlier this week after news of the team having traded Eli Apple to the Saints for a fourth-round pick in 2019 and a seventh-rounder in 2020 broke.
“We’re not throwing in the towel. This will give an opportunity for some young players and newer players to have an opportunity to play. Plus, as we kind of look at this thing moving forward, we’ll have a draft pick – actually two draft picks, one next year and certainly one in 2020, in value.”
Still, it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that the decision to trade a young, healthy starter as well as their best run defender — Damon Harrison was sent to the Lions for a fifth-round pick less than 24 hours after Apple was traded — haven’t thrown the towel in on a disappointing season in which they sold to their fan base as an attempt to go all in on making a run.
“Trades happen, and we feel like maybe the answer is on our roster, and we’re going to let the guys that are here compete and do what they can do to help us win a football game,” Shurmur insisted.
“Locker rooms have a way of moving past all this. Locker rooms have a way of getting themselves right, and putting the next player in there, and you go out and play. I think that’s the view we as coaches and players take.”
So there’s no sense of giving up among the players?
“No, and I think that the ‘giving up on the season’ narrative, I think, is disrespectful to the guys in the locker room,” Shurmur said. “This is an ultimate team sport and teams have ways of dealing with things.”
While it’s up for debate if the Giants would have made these moves if their 1-6 record included at least another victory, the point that Shurmur continues to address in his denial of the team being in a full rebuild is that if the younger players were good enough to be starters, they’d probably have been in the lineup long before a transaction necessitated it.
Not that he’s worried about hurt feelings or anything like that.
“There’s no balancing act in my mind. I’m worried about the team today, and what we need to do to get ready to play Washington. There’s no balance there, but I’m always a part of the discussions as we work to get the roster the way it’s going to be this week, and certainly thinking about the future.”
BY THE NUMBERS: 10 – Number of Giants players remaining from their last playoff appearance in January 2017. The 10 include quarterback Eli Manning, running back Paul Perkins (on reserve), receivers Odell Beckham Jr. and Sterling Shepard, defensive lineman Kerry Wynn, linebackers B.J. Goodson and Olivier Vernon, defensive backs Janoris Jenkins and Landon Collins, and long snapper Zak DeOssie.
