The Giants are less than four days away from kicking off the 2021 season against the Denver Broncos, but they may or may not have all of their offensive superstars.
As the days go by, though, it’s looking more and more likely that Saquon Barkley will play.
Wednesday’s practice was an important step for his availability on Sunday.
“A large degree of what I want to see is kind of how he responds to some contact,” head coach Joe Judge said before Wednesday’s practice. “We’re going to be in pads today, bumping some guys around a little bit, some different drills we’re going to do. I want to see how he puts together three straight days of work as well.”
Judge said that’s the case with several others whose status for Sunday is still questionable.
“There’s a big part in just watching our players bodies respond. [Barkley]’s no different than a lot of other guys we have right now coming off of injury that we’re going to have to see if these next three days, in terms of what they can handle by load and how we think their bodies are going to respond going into Sunday. We got to make the best decision for everybody’s health going into the game. Saquon’s no different than that, so we’re taking that lens of player safety as we go ahead and look at all these guys for the opener.”
Below are more updates from Judge:
Kadarius Toney (limited, hamstring)
“I’d say it is realistic for him to have a significant role [on Sunday] based on how he practices this week. We’re seeing his health improve, we’ve seen him do a lot of things with the team as we’ve kept on moving. He’s handled the installs very well. I’d say for a player who hasn’t seen obviously pre-season games or a lot of significant time volume wise on the field with the guys through preseason, he’s been able to go out there and manage it and execute in practice what we’ve asked him to.”
Evan Engram (did not practice, calf)
“He’s going to do some things separate with the trainers on another field and then we’ll take a look and see how he’s going to look tomorrow.”
Other players who were limited in practice were Kenny Golladay (hamstring), Adoree Jackson (ankle), Kyle Rudolph (foot), and Andrew Thomas (ankle).