Tae Crowder – © USA TODAY Sports
GIANTS REPORTEDLY SIGN A.J. KLEIN…
ESPN is reporting that the New York Giants are signing inside linebacker A.J. Klein. The 31-year old, 6’1”, 240-pound Klein was originally drafted in the 5th round of the 2013 NFL Draft by the Carolina Panthers. He has spent time with the Panthers (2013-2016), New Orleans Saints (2017-2019), and Buffalo Bills (2020-2021). The Bills cut him in March 2022. Klein has played in 134 games with 80 starts, including 15 starts for the Bills from 2020-2021.
OCTOBER 3, 2022 BRIAN DABOLL PRESS CONFERENCE…
New York Giants Head Coach Brian Daboll addressed the media on Monday to discuss his team’s 20-12 victory over the Chicago Bears (the VIDEO of the press conference is also available on YouTube):
Q: Just wanted to see if you had updates. I mean you got a lot of injuries. I’ll just start with the quarterbacks, Daniel (Jones) and Tyrod (Taylor). Anything on those two guys?
A: Ty’s in the (concussion) protocol, and Daniel is feeling a little bit better today. We’ll just see how that goes.
Q: Do you anticipate signing a quarterback I guess in the next 24 hours or so?
A: We’ll probably work out a few quarterbacks. Whether we sign them or not, I think that’s dependent on some of these guys here.
Q: Can you go over some of the other injuries like (tackle) Evan Neal and (wide receiver Kenny) Golladay and (safety) Julian (Love) and the list goes on and on it seems.
A: Evan Neal should be okay. Golladay – we’ll see how it goes towards the end of the week. I’d say it doesn’t look promising. Who was the other one?
Q: Julian Love.
A: We’ll see how that goes, too. He’s in (concussion) protocol as well.
Q: If Golladay can’t go, is receiver another place where you might need to bring in some guys to work out this week?
A: We’ll see. We have three guys on the practice squad that we like. There’s some other guys; we’ll see where they’re at. Whether that be Kadarius (Toney), Wan’Dale (Robinson) – we’ll see where those guys are at here as the week goes on.
Q: Are any of those guys – were you encouraged by going into this week?
A: I think they’re all making progress. Again, (it’s) Monday. So, they’ve got a couple days here. So, we’ll see where they’re at once we get done, call it Thursday.
Q: One other thing I wanted to ask you: did you feel that (inside linebacker) Tae Crowder played his best game so far yesterday? And if so, why?
A: I think he played a good game. Made a lot of tackles, was instinctive. Like all of us, still things to clean up. But I thought he played well.
Q: Where are you at that wide receiver position right now in general? Do you maybe expect any of the other guys back, and if not – it looked like you almost catered your gameplan around that last week. Is that sort of where you need to go moving forward?
A: No. I’d say we catered it to playing the (Chicago) Bears – what we thought we needed to do. I think Kadarius and Wan’Dale are making progress, so we’ll see where those guys are at. And (wide receiver David) then Sills. I thought that Slay (wide receiver Darius Slayton) came in and gave us some good reps. And then (wide receiver) Richie (James) has been dependable for us. So, depending on those other two guys, again the three guys on the practice squad – we brought (wide receiver) Marcus (Johnson) up. (Wide receiver Makai) Polk and (wide receiver Kalil) Pimpleton have done a good job; we’ll continue to work with those guys. So, I think we’ll see more towards the end of the week.
Q: This is not the first time you’ve had to deal with concussions, obviously, in your coaching career. You’ve got two guys under protocol now. Is anything that happened last week with (Miami Dolphins quarterback) Tua (Tagovailoa) and maybe what you’re being mandated through the league now, changing – in any way, shape or form – what you would’ve done two weeks ago with two players in protocol?
A: No. We take every injury serious here, and we try to do everything we can do to put the player’s best interest in mind. That’s what we’ll always do.
Q: One more thing with Daniel. He’s not a pocket-passer per se. You rolled him out and moved him a lot. Do you look at him differently as a quarterback because he obviously can throw, but he’s got an ankle issue that maybe if he can’t move, he can’t play?
A: I just think each day we take a look at him. He can throw from the pocket just fine. Obviously, he has another skillset that you can utilize, whether that’s move the pockets or zone-reads. So, I’d say the first thing we do is make sure he’s as healthy as can be, and if he can do the things we need him to do for that game plan, then we talk about it. If he can’t, then he can’t.
Q: Is there any game plan involving Daniel that would not include him using his legs?
A: I’d say it depends on the team we’re playing. I’ve coached a lot of guys that can move and are dual-threat quarterbacks. Sometimes you use more than others each week. I think it depends on who you are playing and the game plan that we think is good for that week.
Q: Two questions for quarterbacks: What do you need to see from Daniel this week? I guess what I’m asking is could he like not practice and because he’s played so much and knows so much, can he just play if he’s ready to go on Sunday? Or does he need to be part of team reps all the way through Friday to play?
A: I’m just going to take it each day and see how he is. If he can practice and go out there and perform the things we need him to do, great. If he needs a day, he needs a day. I think it’s case-by-case with all those guys. Obviously, he’s played a lot of football. I trust him and where he’s at. I just think that we as a coaching staff have got to do a good job of watching him, evaluating him, getting all the information we need to get to make the best decision for him and the team as we can.
Q: And then, is there a scenario – it seems like there would be – is there a scenario where Davis Webb is your starting quarterback on Sunday? And if so, what’s your – I don’t want to say your confidence level because I know you have confidence in everybody. But what do you see that he does well if he has to play in a regular season game for the first time in his career the bulk of a game?
A: I think you try to plan for every contingency plan that you may or may not have throughout the week. That will certainly be one of them. Again, I don’t want to guess right now on Monday where all the other guys are going to be. Davis been in our offense for quite some time. He knows the ins and outs of it, so if he has to play, we’ll do everything we can, and I know he will, to be ready to play. In terms of where we’re at at that point, I don’t think we’re at that point just yet to make a decision. We’ll let this thing play out.
Q: A couple of quick ones for you. Did you have a problem with the hit on Tyrod that led to the concussion? It looked like it may have been helmet to helmet.
A: That happens quick. He scrambled around, and again, I thought he knew what he needed for the first down. I thought the defender made a good play on it. It was a quick bang-bang play.
Q: Are you signing (former Giants safety) Landon Collins?
A: We’re going to work him out. But we work out – and that was, I’d say (general manager) Joe (Schoen) had that set up before the week even started. We work a lot of people out. I think we’ll continue to do that. We did that where we were last place. We’ll do that – we’ll work as many people out each week to continue to evaluate players and see. Whether it’s this week, whether it’s down the road, whether it’s an emergency case, there’s a lot of things that go into it. But that’s just part of the preparation process on Joe’s end and really for our end, too.
Q: Last one from me. It’s kind of a unique week here with the trip to London at the end of it. How does that change any of the things that you want the players to focus on this week in terms of rest and all the other things that go into it. And does it affect at all how you’re going to handle your quarterback decision as you get closer to the game?
A: We’ve made adjustments this week in terms of whether it’s reps, no pads. I think (director of coaching operations) Laura Young along with a lot of other people in this organization have done a really good job of preparing for this week ahead of time. We’ll have a meeting here at 3:30 after special teams is done to kind of go through things regarding that trip. Again, it’s my first time going across seas to participate in a football game. We look forward to it; not much longer travel time than it is to go to the West Coast. So, we’ll just try to do our job during the week to get ready. I think the sports science staff, the trainers, like I said (vice president of team operations) Jim Phelan, LY (Laura Young), they’ve done a good job of getting ready so we can concentrate on the teams we were playing. Give them a brief rundown of some things to expect. It’ll be about four people that talk today in the meeting: (vice president of team security) Jerry (Meade), LY, (director of wellness and clinical services) Dr. Lani (Lawrence), and (director of rehabilitation/physical therapist) Leigh Weiss will all kind of address their certain areas, so we feel as prepared as we can before the preparations really start. We’ll clean up yesterday’s game – go through that. And then they’ll have their day off. It’ll be a fairly normal week other than we travel on Thursday.
Q: What is Daniel’s injury?
A: He has an ankle.
Q: Is it a sprained ankle? No fractures?
A: Yeah. He’s fine in that regard. He’s got an ankle. It’s sprained.
Q: High ankle sprain?
A: I’m not going to get into the specifics of it.
Q: I wanted to ask you about some other guys that I don’t think were touched on: (guard) Mark Glowinski, (cornerback) Aaron Robinson, (defensive lineman) Henry Mondeaux, (outside linebacker) Azeez Ojulari, (outside linebacker) Kayvon (Thibodeaux).
A: Let’s go one at a time.
Q: Mark Glowinski?
A: He should be okay.
Q: Aaron Robinson?
A: Probably not.
Q: Henry Mondeaux?
A: Probably not.
Q: That’s good news. It’s not season ending then?
A: Nope.
Q: Azeez?
A: Azeez – we’ll kind of see where he’s at here on Wednesday when he gets back.
Q: And Kayvon?
A: Kayvon should be okay.
Q: And (outside linebacker Jihad) Ward?
A: Ward will be okay.
Q: I’d like to talk about your tight ends. You obviously went a lot with big personnel yesterday, and I think – if I’m correct – on Daniel’s touchdown runs you had 13 out there, personnel. If you don’t mind, what did you see out of your tight ends, especially Tanner Hudson?
A: I think those guys have made steady improvements. I think Coach Bischoff (tight ends coach Andy Bischoff) has done a really good job with those guys. They’re smart. They’re tough. They’re dependable. We thought that was a good personnel package to use. I thought they played well this game for the things we asked them to do. (Daniel) Bellinger is young. And Tanner and (fullback Chris) Myarick don’t have a ton of experience or a ton of production in the league. But these guys have been working their tails off since they’re been here. I think they’re earning the trust of the coaches to put them out on the field more. And in this game, we happened to use a little bit more multiple tight end sets than the previous couple of weeks. But they earned it. That was part of the plan going into the game relative to deciding what we wanted to do and how we wanted to play. I think that will change every week.
THE PLAYERS SPEAK…
Transcripts and video clips of the media sessions with the following players are available in The Corner Forum and at Giants.com:
WHAT’S UP NEXT…
The players are off on Tuesday and there is no media access to the team. The Giants return to practice on Wednesday afternoon (12:45-2:45PM).
