New York Giants Mailbag: The "Grab Bag" Edition

Welcome to another installment of our weekly mailbag. To take part in the mailbag, you can do one of three things. The first is to tweet your questions to me @Patricia_Traina with the hashtag #askPtrain.

If you have a Giants Country account (registration is free, in case you didn’t know—just hit the FOLLOW button to register for your account), you can send your question to me by clicking the DIRECT MESSAGE option found under the hamburger menu at the top left corner of the page.

Or, if you want to e-mail the question, send it to nygiantsmaven@gmail.com.

#askPtrain what are the defense and offense's biggest position weakness at this stage, and what are their strengths. Name one thing about any of the coaching staff that surprised you working with them this year. Thanx always for a good job and better example you set!
— Tony Thomas (@BlackBanjotony) November 27, 2020

Thanks for the kind words, Tony. On offense, I think the Giants desperately need a No. 1 receiver. Right now, I think Darius Slayton is their only true deep threat, and one of the reasons why his production is down from last year is that he’s drawing more attention. Put another receiver on the field to keep opponents up at night, and the sky could be the limit for that young man.

On defense, I think they’re missing a consistent pass-rushing threat. I don’t feel as though they ever really replaced Jason Pierre-Paul. They tried through the draft, but I don’t think it’s worked out as expected and for numerous reasons, injury included. If I’m Dave Gettleman, I make finding a No. 1 pass rusher and a No. 1 receiver, be it through the draft or free agency, top priorities this coming off-season.

John, anything is possible, which is why you line up and play the games every week. That said, I think the team we saw in Week 3 was still trying to find itself and get comfortable with what it was asked to do.

Now that they appear to be more comfortable in that regard, I would be shocked if we see a repeat of this team's disheartening performance in Week 3.

Williams, Tomlinson, Logan Ryan are all free agents. Who do you think is brought back? Any moves we could do with contract restructures to make more cap space available?
— NYG_PETE (@nyg_pete) November 27, 2020

What’s up, Pete? I’m saving a salary cap breakdown until after the season as I’ve been enjoying writing about meaningful football for the first time since 2016. (Plus, no one knows for sure what the new cap number will be other than it will drop to under $200 million, which makes doing these kinds of projections tricky.)

But to answer your question about who I think comes back, my guess would be Logan Ryan would be high on the list, and of Williams and Tomlinson, my gut says they go with Williams, the pass rusher, over Tomlinson, the run stopper.

#askPtrain
If McKinney or Ximines come back, who will they take snaps from, and can they provide meaningful contribution this year?
— ChrisFredericks (@FredericksChris) November 23, 2020

I don’t think Ximines will be activated this week, but when he is finally activated, the guy I think he might take snaps from is Trent Harris, who’s been a spot player for them. (I could see them maybe even cutting Harris to make room for Ximines.)

As for McKinney, I believe he’ll likely cut into some of Julian Love’s snaps on defense.

#askPtrain Do you expect Bradberry to shadown Boyd on Sunday or judt stick to one side?
— Adam Zenzer (@Zenzer76) November 23, 2020

My guess is James Bradberry will mostly shadow Tyler Boyd. I think it makes sense to cover the most dangerous receive the opponent has with the best corner you have, and with all due respect to A.J. Green, something seems to be off with his game.

Hi Patricia, why would Jason Garrett, be on the hot seat? If anything, I certainly think he would be a, sought after HC candidate at the end of the season? I always thought he was a very, very good off. coordinator, Was that just a rumor?
— Rol1971🇺🇸 (@RolndD41) November 23, 2020

He wouldn’t unless there is some personality clash brewing between him and head coach Joe Judge that no one knows about. Let’s put this whole Garrett moving on rumor into perspective, shall we?

Does anyone think that after being a head coach for what, a decade or close to it, Garrett will be content with remaining as an offensive coordinator? I don’t, and I think if other teams come calling to interview him for a head coaching vacancy, I can see him jumping at the chance to get back to being his own man.

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