The New York Giants will break training camp on Thursday after their final Blue-White scrimmage. The regular season will begin a week from today on Sept 10 with the Kickoff Opener between the Houston Texans and Kansas City Chiefs.
The Giants will open their season at home against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday, Sept 14. Here are some things you may need – or want – to know before the season begins.
Teams must reduce their rosters to 53 by 4 PM ET this Saturday.The Giants will make roster decisions on 27 players between now and that cutoff time. Most players will be released and head towards the waiver wire (players with less than four accrued seasons are subject to waivers while the others become free agents immediately upon release).
Any player placed on IR by 4 PM on Saturday is out for the 2020 season. If a team wants to designate a player for “short term” IR, meaning they will be eligible to return after eight weeks, they must first place them on the final 63-man roster and then shift them to IR (See: Xavier McKinney, David Mayo).
As for waivers, the priority has been set by the 2020 draft order. The Giants had the fourth overall pick, so they will have dibs over 28 other teams on any players they choose to claim. Only Cincinnati, Washington and Detroit have priority over the Giants.
On Sunday at noon, teams can begin filling their 16 practice squad spots. The practice squad was expanded from 12 to 16 players this year to accommodate COVID-19 concerns. General manager Dave Gettleman brought some perspective to how this year’s practice squad should be run because of the COVID-19 protocols:
“Really and truly, because of the protocols that are going to be in place during the season, your immediate help is going to be the practice squad guys, because anybody, whether it’s a waiver, a trade, a claim, taking someone off somebody else’s practice squad, or bringing in a street free agent, is going to require time. You can touch them, but they can’t come in your building and they can’t practice. The practice squad is going to be really important, how you set those up, because those guys are going to be your immediate help. People would say, ‘well, bring people in on Friday and start the testing protocols so that you have them ready for the week.’ You don’t know what’s going to happen that weekend. You don’t know what position you’re going to need. There may be guys out there you want to work out that you’re going to do anyhow. But at the end of the day, you’re really going to have to really be very intentional about your practice squad. The league has given us that flexibility because they’re allowing us six veterans on the practice squad. They’re allowing for what they call practice squad exception players, and those are guys that have some NFL experience, varsity experience. You’re allowed four of those, so 10 of the 16 could be guys with NFL snaps under their belt. But that’s where your immediate help is going to come from because anybody you get any other way, there’s going to be the protocols, testing cadence, physicals. It’s going to be a process.”