The New York Giants know they have to add some depth along the offensive line.
The Giants have been rocked by the retirements of Zach Fulton and Joe Looney, have placed guard Kyle Murphy on IR and have seen reserve linemen Jonotthan Harrison and Nate Solder miss practice time with injuries.
“That stuff [retirements/injuries] happens. Four of the five starters were out there Saturday night [vs. the Jets] and the offensive line really played pretty well,” GM Dave Gettleman said on Tuesday. “Listen, you have to have depth everywhere, whether it’s the offensive line, the linebackers, secondary, you need depth, you need to have quality depth. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to do that at every position. Obviously, we didn’t expect those guys to retire, but they had their reasons and it’s their lives. I wish them the best and respect the decisions they made. They made tough decisions. Training camp is not over, the roster building season never ends. We’ll get to where we need to get to.”
Head coach Joe Judge said this week that he wouldn’t rule out making a move before the joint practices in Cleveland begin on Thursday.
“I’m not saying that’s an absolute or that we have to do it, but we’ll see where the person on the street is available and we’ll see where we are as a team after today,” he said on Tuesday.
Truth is, there isn’t a whole lot currently available on the street. Beyond the players we listed a few days ago, here are the interior offensive lineman who became free on Tuesday when teams trimmed their rosters from 90 to 85 players:
Guard Bryce Hargrove, guard Gabe Cervenka, guard Cordel Iwaugwu, guard Jon Dietzen. I don’t know about you, but I hadn’t heard of any of those players until I read their names on the NFL’s transactions report.
“Every day we’re looking,” Gettleman said. “My gut tells me that there’ll be more movement of those types of players that you feel good about after the second preseason game and maybe even after the cut because you’ve got to remember you now have a full week. Going to cut to the 53, (Head) Coach (Joe Judge) is left a couple of practices, players have Friday, Saturday and Sunday off, so I think you could see some horse trading going on during that period of time.”
Gettleman advocated being patient and waiting for the right player or players to become available.
“I’ve learned that if you have patience, stuff happens. All of a sudden, a player becomes available that you weren’t expecting,” Gettleman said. “It’s kind of like what happened with us in free agency — all of a sudden (CB) Adoree’ Jackson’s available, all of a sudden (TE) Kyle Rudolph’s available. There’s a saying, ‘You don’t lock your knees,’ so you just sit there and you talk to people, you make phone calls, you watch film, ‘Hey, is this guy available?’ ‘Hey, would you consider moving that guy?’ ‘Hell no,’ ‘Yeah, I would for this.’ You have those conversations. It’s a chess piece.”
Right now, the Giants’ chess board is missing a few of those pieces. They have made it clear they are looking for replacement pieces.
