The Giants have lost a key member of their defensive line during Organized Team Activities.
Roy Robertson-Harris tore his Achilles during yesterday’s practice, according to Dan Duggan of TheAthletic.com.
Robertson-Harris signed a two-year, $9 million contract with the Giants a year ago and started all 17 games last season. He had been working with the first-string defense at OTAs.
Achilles tendon tears are almost always season-ending injuries. It’s possible that with a fast recovery, a player who tears his Achilles in May could play by the end of the year, but it’s a long shot.
The Giants traded away their best defensive lineman, Dexter Lawrence, last month, so they’ve now lost two defensive linemen who started all 17 games last season. Free agent signings DJ Reader and Shelby Harris become even more important now, as does the development of sixth-round rookie Bobby Jamison-Travis.
Robertson-Harris is the second Giant to suffer a torn Achilles during offseason work. Rookie cornerback Thaddeus Dixon tore his Achilles last week.
By rule, NFL offseason practices are non-contact: No tackling, no blocking, no physical pass coverage, certainly no touching the quarterback. That makes it hard for the players to get the competitive juices flowing.
But Giants coach John Harbaugh says he still wants to see players looking competitive. He just wants them competitive with themselves, trying to get better every day than they were the day before.
“There’s no there’s no contact at all,” Harbaugh said. “You got to work with the guys that do that because guys get fired up, they want to go and you got to make sure that you can’t get near the quarterback. You can’t pull and push guys. There’s no physical contests out here. There’s no competition in the sense of you’re competing one-on-one to make a play because there’s no contact, and football is a contact sport. So, it’s more about I’m competing against myself, my technique, my assignment, my ability to execute really fast.”
Harbaugh says he’s impressed that players manage to avoid contact as well as they do.
“I think one of the things that’s amazing to me, I tell these guys this. . . . You’re standing right here on the sideline and you’re seeing how fast these guys move, right? And how big they are. And there’s 22 guys intersecting full speed. I’m just surprised that there’s not more more collisions in the intersection which goes to show you how talented these guys are. And I think it’s across the league in the NFL. For them to practice fast like this on a no-contact basis and not run into each other is just an incredible thing and it’s a testament to their abilities,” Harbaugh said.
Harbaugh said quarterback Jaxson Dart is a good example of a player who’s competing with himself, demanding nothing but completions when he knows the defense isn’t really competing.
“We are competing against ourselves, against execution,” Harbaugh said. “The offense should complete most passes because passes aren’t being contested at the catch point right now. So if we’re executing and doing things the right way, we should be completing passes out here. The ball shouldn’t hit the ground too often. He understands that and that’s why he wants things to be right, play after play.”
Giants General Manager Joe Schoen lost a significant amount of internal influence when the team hired coach John Harbaugh. Schoen’s willingness to adapt has helped secure his future in New York.
The Giants have announced that Schoen has signed a multi-year extension.
Schoen, we’re told, had been entering the last year of his contract with the team.
The move necessarily means that Schoen has made a solid impression on new coach John Harbaugh. The long-time Ravens coach’s arrival transformed the long-time reporting structure with the Giants. For decades, the G.M. ran the show, with the coach reporting to the G.M. Now, the coach and G.M. separately report to ownership.
It’s no surprise that ownership was willing to make a major change to the way they do business. The Giants have struggled since winning Super Bowl XLVI, 15 years ago. They’ve had a revolving door at coach and G.M. Harbaugh instantly has stabilized the organization — and he has determined in less than five months that he’ll be happy to partner with Schoen in the coming years.
The Giants had their first three organized team activities this week, and starting left tackle participated in two of them. Head coach John Harbaugh said Thomas will get some maintenance days for foot and shoulder issues.
Thomas missed the first two games in 2025 as he worked his way back from a Lisfranc injury in his foot in 2024. He said he and the Giants’ medical staff are “doing our best to manage it” with the maintenance days. Thomas called his shoulder a “lingering” injury but said he thinks it’s “in a good place.”
“They have a nice ramp-up plan for me. Just a precautionary thing,” Thomas said, via video from the team. “Obviously, what we care about is September, being ready. I’ve been trusting that. It’s definitely tough sometimes, because I want to push and I want to get better. But I’m trying to trust the process to make sure I’m ready to go when it counts.”
Thomas missed the final two games of last season with a strained hamstring, but that is not an issue now.
The Giants have second-year swing tackle Marcus Mbow taking Thomas’ reps when he is out. First-round pick Francis Mauigoa is with the starters at right guard.
Malik Nabers’ second season came to a premature end when he suffered a torn ACL in Week 4 of last year.
While there is a chance Nabers is ready for Week 1 in September, right now the Giants wide receiver is in the dog days of his recovery process.
“He’s in the middle of [his rehab],” Giants head coach John Harbaugh said on Thursday, via Jordan Raanan of ESPN. “It’s a hard thing. It’s an ACL whatever else he had in the knee. Not a simple knee [injury]. So, he’s in the slog of it, the grind of it, I would say. So, he’s fighting through it. He’s here every day.
“Just impossible to predict [when he’ll be ready]. I mean, the goal is to start the season and for him to get out there sometime in training camp — that’d be the goal. And then, we’ll see what happens. If he’s out there, great. If he’s not out there, great. We’ll be ready to go either way. But, I know he’s fighting like crazy to do his best to be out there. And he’s with the guys every day.”
With this being Nabers’ first significant injury at the pro level, Harbaugh noted the Giants are doing their best to keep the young receiver engaged during the offseason program.
“[M]y experience with guys, the first time you have a serious injury, it’s tough because it’s new for him,” Harbaugh said. “It’s a tough process. Our job is to stay close to him, to stay with him, and his job is to trust, work hard. He’s doing his job and the trainers and docs are doing their job. And he’ll be back.”
The No. 6 pick of the 2024 draft, Nabers caught 109 passes for 1,204 yards with seven touchdowns as a rookie. He had 18 catches for 271 yards and two touchdowns in his limited action in 2025.
