The New York Giants didn’t give themselves much time to bask in the afterglow of a successful preseason opener.

There was some time for reflection when Giants’ head coach Brian Daboll spoke to the media on Sunday, and he had plenty to say about his team’s performance. But the NFL’s schedule is relentless, and by Sunday it was already time to turn the page to the looming joint practices — and preseason game — against the New York Jets.

The biggest news to come out of Coach Daboll’s press conference was the injury to second year cornerback Dru Phillips.

“Dru wasn’t able to go,” Daboll said when asked why veteran Nic Jones was inserted at slot corner with the starters. He did reassure reporters that Phillips isn’t seriously injured. “No, he just couldn’t finish,” he said. He then added, “Falls in line with all the other injured guys right now.” That, of course, references Andrew Thomas, Cam Skattebo, and Jalin Hyatt, each of whom is dealing working back from an injury.

None are believed to be long-term injuries and the team has (so far) indicated that they’ll all be healthy in time for the season.

As for Thomas in particular, Daboll said that the star left tackle is still day-to-day. “We’ll keep on improving him,” Daboll said. “When he can do more, he’ll do more. And when it is [that he can be activated from the PUP], that’s when it’ll be.”

On the Giants quarterbacks

The Giants almost completely revamped their quarterback room this past offseason, bringing in Russell Wilson, Jameis Winston, and Jaxson Dart to join Tommy DeVito. It would have been completely understandable if the Giants were a bit shaky throwing the ball in what was the first live action in this offense for three of the four quarterbacks.

Instead, all of the Giants’ quarterbacks were crisp, efficient, and effective in the pocket.

“That starts with the offensive line giving them good protection,” Daboll said. “But all four of them did a nice job in the pocket, kept their eyes downfield, and made plays when they could make them. Had that one [negated interception] where they were called for defensive off-sides, we threw it to the post safety there. Then Jameis came back, kinda reloaded, and then drove down and hit it. Russell [Wilson] was efficient, Tommy [DeVito] was good, efficient, made good decisions. I thought all four of them, albeit it was a preseason game where you’re not seeing many things, did their jobs and did it at a fairly high level.”

Daboll was also — predictably — pleased with how the rookie Dart played as well. Dart showed some good toughness with his willingness to take hits for his team. Nobody is complaining about the hit he took after throwing a touchdown to Lil’Jordan Humphrey, however it’s been suggested that the hit he took running with the ball was unnecessary.

“I thought it was a good play,” Daboll said when asked about it. “It was a good play, twenty yard gain. He’s out there with the ball in his hand, and there’s times that call for you to slide and there’re other times that don’t. Obviously we want to minimize the hits for our quarterbacks, but there’s a competitive nature to that position as well. He’s going to learn as he goes along, we’ve got a lot of guys who can run with the ball and we want [him] to take as few hits as we can. And sometimes there’s plays where you’re not going to be able to get down. He’s going to have to do a good job of getting his pads low and protecting himself.”

“He’s been a good runner in college,” Daboll added, “and we’ll do a good job of working out the kinks of him carrying the ball. But I have confidence in his instincts and what he sees out there, and when he needs to [take hits]. We’ll try to minimize as many hits as we can, but he’s a competitor.”

Circling back to the offensive line that protected the Giants’ QBs, Daboll was complimentary of fifth round rookie lineman Marcus Mbow.

“I thought he did a good job,” Daboll said. “Protected well, he’s athletic, he knew all the plays, the assignments that he had. “He’s had a good camp up to this point. We’ve played him on both sides [left and right tackle], and he’s done a nice job since he’s been here.”

The Giants hope they don’t have to count on Mbow as a starter anytime soon, but his play was certainly encouraging and helped the Giants’ quarterbacks play as well.

While the win over the Bills was a reason for optimism as we ramp up to the regular season, the Giants are now turning the page to this week’s game against the New York Jets. The annual showdown between the intracity rivals is always a source of bragging rights for fans, but the joint practices that will precede the game are a great opportunity for the teams.

“It’s good to go against different schemes, players, different match-ups, as long as you practice the right way,” Daboll said.

Daboll also elaborated on his relationship with new Jets’ head coach Aaron Glenn, and how that’s helping both teams get the most out of these practices. “AG and I have a really good relationship,” Daboll said. “We’ve talked about it a number of times, our scheduling and what we’re looking to get out of [the practices]. Which is good, competitive work that’s against different teams that do different things. We’re able to look at their team, they’re able to look at us, and we have a lot of players out there who are competing for roster spots. So I think it serves multiple roles.”

He later added that his relationship with Glenn goes back quite a ways, to when Daboll first came into the NFL and Glenn was a player. Glenn was a cornerback for the Jets from 1994 to 2001, and then for the Houston Texans from 2002 to 2004. At the same time, Daboll came into the NFL as an defensive assistant for the New England Patriots in 2000 and 2001, then their wide receivers coach from 2002 to 2006.

“I’ve known AG a long time,” Daboll said. “I’ve got a lot of respect for him as a man and as a coach. He’s easy to work with, we’ve communicated a bunch throughout the years, obviously the last couple years at Detroit when he was a defensive coordinator.”

The Giants held joint practices with the Lions in 2023 and 2024, and that experience has helped streamline the plan for this year’s practices.

“We’ve gone through situations of how we’re going to practice, what we want the tempo to be, the periods. The communication process has been good.”

”We have an outline of how we’re going to practice in terms of the periods,” he added. “When we’re going to be separate, when we’re going to be together. Usually there’s some type of one-on-one work, and I’ll be on the Giants’ offensive field, he’ll be on the Jets’ offensive field. What we talked about is when he’s on [the Jets’ field] and I’m on [the Giants’ field], then you’re the ‘head coach of that field’, if you will.”

Daboll is clearly looking forward to testing his team against the Jets — who won their own preseason opener over the Green Bay Packers. But he also wants to make sure the practices run smoothly, both from a coordination perspective and that they avoid any… extracurriculars.

“We want to practice the right way, get work out of it,” Daboll said. “Try to keep the cheap shots and all that other stuff out of it, like we’re practicing against one another on our own teams. But get work out of it against different skill sets and different schemes. The drills we do, whether it’s a 7-on-7, teams, Red Zone, third down, whatever it may be, we talk about those almost prior to leaving [for the summer] in June. Then our assistants go back and forth on things, we address them, we’ve probably communicated three or four times today already.”

This week and these joint practices, in some ways, could be the most valuable of August. The Jets have a great defense to test the Giants’ offense as well as some very good offensive players for the Giants’ defense to practice against.

“It’s good to work with another team,” he finished,“if you can get proper stuff out of it.”