The NFL’s announcement of fines for Week 3 featured six infractions for player safety fouls that qualify toward possible suspensions.
Two of those fouls were hip-drop tackles. 49ers linebacker Fred Warner and Rams safety Kam Curl were each fined $17,911. Warner was also fined $23,882 for illegal use of his helmet in a tackle.
Texans linebacker Jamal Hill, Giants tight end Isaiah Likely, and Steelers linebacker Cole Holcomb were each fined for blindside blocks. Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair was fined for a hit on a defenseless player.
Any player with three fines for any one of those infractions will be suspended for one game. The same potential penalty applies to fouls for launching or horse-collar tackles. No player has been fined more than once for any of the qualifying infractions yet this season.
Giants Clips
It’s the year of the backup quarterback, so far.
Through three weeks, six quarterbacks who didn’t start in Week 1 have since started six games. They’re collectively 6-0.
Vikings quarterback Carson Wentz started and won at Chicago in Week 2. Seahawks quarterback Drew Lock started and won at Arizona in Week 2. Falcons quarterback Michael Penix Jr. started and won at Green Bay in Week 3. Giants quarterback Jameis Winston started and won vs. the Titans in Week 3. Washington quarterback Marcus Mariota started and won vs. the Seahawks in Week 6. And Bears quarterback Case Keenum started and won vs. the Eagles in Week 3.
In Week 4, two more quarterbacks who didn’t start in Week 1 are expected to start their first games of the season: Bears quarterback Tyson Bagent vs. the Jets and Buccaneers quarterback Jalon Daniels vs. the Packers.
The situation shows the importance of having two, if not three, quarterbacks who can be counted on to play, and play well. A game here or a game there in the absence of the starting quarterback could eventually make the difference between making the playoffs or missing the bus.
The Cardinals listed a key member of their defense as questionable to play in this Sunday’s game against the Giants.
Linebacker Josh Sweat landed in that category after a limited practice on Friday. Sweat was listed as limited on Thursday for a rest day, but the Cardinals added a groin injury to the report on Friday.
Sweat has three tackles and a tackle for loss so far this season. Baron Browning, Zaven Collins, Jordan Burch, and Eku Leota are the other outside linebackers on the 53-man roster in Arizona.
Safety Dadrion Taylor-Demerson has been ruled out for this weekend. Taylor-Demerson is dealing with a back injury.
The Giants have not said whether J.J. McCarthy will be Jameis Winston’s backup for this Sunday’s game against the Cardinals, but there’s a good chance that the 2024 first-round pick will get a chance to play quarterback for the team at some point in the near future.
McCarthy was acquired in a trade with the Vikings earlier this week as the Giants work out a plan to move forward without Jaxson Dart for the rest of the season. McCarthy said on Friday that there are “a multitude of things you could think of” to explain why his time in Minnesota did not go as planned, but that the only thing that’s important now is making the most of his current situation.
“When I got the call here, it was a shock. I didn’t anticipate it, but at the end of the day, it’s an opportunity,” McCarthy said, via Jordan Raanan of ESPN.com. “It’s an opportunity to take advantage of. And I love these guys already and I can’t wait to do it for them.”
It remains to be seen whether McCarthy’s results will be markedly different than his time with the Vikings, but things had clearly soured in Minnesota and his best chance to find a long-term role as a starter in the NFL was going to come with a different team. The Giants may not be that team once Dart is able to play again, but a good showing will open a door for McCarthy somewhere in 2027 and beyond.
Nick Saban’s two-year stint as an NFL head coach began in 2005. It could have started eight years earlier.
In a Thursday interview with Chris “Mad Dog” Russo of SiriusXM Mad Dog Radio, Saban admitted — eventually — that the Giants had offered him the head-coaching job after the Giants fired Dan Reeves, when Saban was the head coach at Michigan State.
“It’s very difficult in college, you know, and the NFL, you have an opportunity to go to the NFL, you’re still coaching, you’re still recruiting,” Saban said. “If you stay in college, you don’t want it to upset your coaching and recruiting and all that. So you don’t wanna say that I’m gonna go interview for the Giants job. So [G.M.] George [Young] and I worked out a deal. He said, ‘Well, where do you think we can meet and nobody would know it?’ And I said, ‘The least obvious place you would ever think. Just come to my house in East Lansing and nobody will ever know it.’ That’s what he did.”
In other words, Saban (like plenty of other college coaches over the years) had made various promises that he didn’t want anyone to know he was thinking about breaking, until the moment he decided to do so.
So did the Giants offer him the job in 1997?
“You know, I can’t really remember what we talked about and how we ended up there, but I think Ernie [Accorsi] was assistant general manager then,” Saban said. “And I love Ernie. He was at the Browns when I was there with Belichick. Yeah, they did offer me the job actually.”
Saban obviously didn’t take it. The Giants hired Jim Fassel, who took them to the Super Bowl in 2000.
It’s unclear whether the Giants made another run at Saban after Fassel was fired, after the 2003 season. A year later, Saban took the Dolphins job.
If he’d jumped to the NFL in 1997, Saban would have faced the same issues he did in Miami. The salary cap is the great equalizer, and there’s no way to recruit an annual flock of players who are the equivalent of NFL first-round picks. Saban learned that, at the college level, it’s a lot easier to stack the deck in his favor.
Jameis Winston will be starting at quarterback for the Giants against the Cardinals on Sunday, but the team’s move to add J.J. McCarthy in a trade this week has led to questions about how long he’ll remain in that role.
Winston struggled when he came in after Jaxson Dart’s injury in Week 2, but avoided turnovers while going 14-of-22 for 118 yards in the Giants’ 12-7 win over the Titans last Sunday. In his weekly press conference, Winston said he doesn’t feel any more challenged to play well because of McCarthy’s arrival.
“I mean, I have to play well regardless,” Winston said, via a transcript from the team. “It doesn’t matter who’s in the building. When you’re the quarterback for the New York Football Giants, you have to give your team a chance to win, and that’s just the business that we’re in.”
The Giants were clear about their intent to add to their quarterback options after Dart was ruled out for the rest of the season, so Winston knew something was coming before the McCarthy news came early in the week and he’s also been in the league long enough to know that job security is often determined on a week-to-week basis.
The Giants have made a move to add depth at outside linebacker in the wake of Brian Burns’s season-ending knee injury.
Jihad Ward was on the practice field Thursday, which confirms multiple reports that the Giants were signing him off of the Vikings’ practice squad. Ward signed with the Vikings in early September and did not appear in any games for the team.
It’s Ward’s second stint with the Giants and his second stint playing for John Harbaugh. He had four sacks in 21 games for the Ravens in 2019 and 2020 before moving on to have eight sacks in 34 games for the Giants in 2022 and 2023.
Ward has also played for the Titans, Jaguars, Colts and Raiders, who brought him into the league as a 2016 second-round pick.
The Giants wrapped up a 12-7 win over the Titans last Sunday when safety Jevon Holland intercepted a pass in the end zone and the play also wrapped up a stellar month for Holland.
Holland had an interception in each of the three games that the Giants played in September, which has already given him a career high for a single season. Holland was also credited with 12 tackles, two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery while helping the team to a 2-1 start to the year.
On Thursday, the NFL recognized Holland’s effort by naming him the NFC’s defensive player of the month for September.
Holland will try to add to his exploits against the Cardinals this Sunday and the Giants will take all that he can give after losing quarterback Jaxson Dart and linebacker Brian Burns to season-ending knee injuries over the last couple of weeks.
Giants linebacker Brian Burns is set to have knee surgery on Thursday and doctors will reportedly be repairing more than just his ACL.
Dan Duggan of TheAthletic.com reports that Burns also tore the meniscus in his right knee when he was injured in last Sunday’s 12-7 win over the Titans. Both injuries will be addressed during his surgery in New York.
Burns’s teammate Malik Nabers suffered the same two injuries in late September last year. The wide receiver was able to return for the start of this season, but has had a quiet start with 12 catches for 96 yards through three weeks.
The Giants will be hoping Burns can follow Nabers’s path and be ready for the start of next season. They’d surely prefer his return come with the impact he’s provided in the past, but the first step will be getting healthy enough to play.
Before the 2024 draft, former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh had plenty of glowing things to say about former Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy.
So it’s no surprise that Jim Harbaugh had many positive things to say about McCarthy to Harbaugh’s brother, John, before John’s Giants traded for McCarthy.
“I mean, John called me and asked me,” Harbaugh told reporters on Wednesday. “I said, you know, John, I love you. I love J.J. I think you guys would be . . .’ so, really, I’m telling you the same thing that I told my brother.”
For whatever reason, things didn’t work for McCarthy in Minnesota. But they worked for McCarthy in Michigan. Maybe McCarthy responds better to the Harbaugh rah-rah style. Maybe McCarthy’s second act with the Giants will go better than his first NFL stint.
However it goes, McCarthy needed a fresh start. And playing for Jim Harbaugh’s brother may be the next best thing to playing for Jim Harbaugh.
