New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen entered the offseason intent on beefing up the team’s depth and talent at skill positions. Finally, the organization was going to provide quarterback Daniel Jones the help he has so desperately lacked.
And to Schoen’s credit, he did exactly that.
The big acquisition came early in free agency when the Giants acquired tight end Darren Waller, a big 6-foot-6, 238-pound target, from the Las Vegas Raiders.
That move was supplemented by the free-agent additions of wide receivers Parris Campbell, Jamison Crowder, and Jeff Smith. They also re-signed wide receivers Sterling Shepard, Darius Slayton, and Isaiah Hodgins.
But Schoen wasn’t done there. He also wanted to add talent and depth for defensive coordinator Wink Martindale, so a big-splash signing was made with linebacker Bobby Okereke.
Other notable defensive additions included defensive tackle Rakeem Nunez-Roches, safety Bobby McCain, and cornerbacks Amani Oruwariye and Leonard Johnson.
On paper, those are solid additions. There’s a lot the Giants can do with each of those players but there is one thing the vast majority of them share in common: a history of injury.
In seven career seasons, Waller has played a full slate of games just twice. He’s missed 14 games over the previous two seasons and his production has dipped considerably as a result.
“I believe wholeheartedly in myself, and I believe that through action and consistent performance Giants fans will believe, as well,” Waller said during his introductory Zoom call. “They can have questions at this moment about my health — those are legitimate concerns — but I believe I’ve addressed those issues. I’m willing to be the best I can be to be a weapon for this team — a tool that this team can use to get to the next level they want to go to.”
Similarly, Campbell had the first three seasons of his career marred by injury. He missed 34 total games before finally playing a full 17-game schedule in 2022.
“The injuries that I had, there were things that were just freak accidents. You couldn’t really draw it up. They weren’t avoidable to me. They were things that happened and just had some bad luck,” Campbell said during his first Zoom conference. “Like I said, was able to play all 17 last year, so I was extremely blessed.”
Crowder, too, has dealt with various injury issues in recent years. After a relatively healthy start to his career, he’s missed a combined 22 games over the past three seasons.
Giants fans are intimately familiar with Shepard’s injury issues, as well as those of running back Saquon Barkley and quarterback Daniel Jones, each of whom managed to stay healthy in 2023.
Defensively, the issues aren’t quite as pronounced. McCain has remained consistently healthy throughout his career, which is also true for Okereke and Nunez-Roches. However, Oruwariye has missed a combined six games over the past two seasons.
Johnson, of course, missed his entire rookie season after suffering a torn ACL ahead of the 2022 NFL draft.
Overall, the injury risk seems pronounced. But Schoen has done his due diligence on each individual player, including his own, and feels comfortable with the lot. He also understands that sometimes injuries are simply the result of bad luck.
“When I got the job, Daniel [Jones], he missed a lot of games the year before,” Schoen said, via the New York Post. “Saquon [Barkley] missed a lot of games the year before. Richie James missed the entire season the year before. Leonard Williams hadn’t missed a game his entire career. You’ve got to balance it.
“It’s football. There are going to be injuries. You evaluate the injuries on an individual basis. Were they preventable? How did they occur? You look at the film on some of the injuries. Is it something we could’ve done better? So we’re always going to continue to find a competitive advantage where we can. I have a lot of confidence in our training and our medical staff and the research that we’ve done.”
The larger issue in adding players with an injury history is the Giants’ history themselves. They are routinely among the most-injured teams in the league and since 2009, lead the NFL in man games lost. They were again among the worst in 2023.
Some of that can be — and has been — blamed on the turf at MetLife Stadium. The Giants set out to change that this offseason and although they didn’t go with grass, they did swap it out with something deemed to be safer.
What does it all add up to? That remains to be seen but the Giants are ultimately banking on players with a long injury history to remain healthy while also bucking their own injury trend in 2023.
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