Plenty of NFL teams feel good about the work they completed in training camp and it is fair to say optimism abounds at many outposts throughout the league. The Giants can be counted among those teams “feeling good about themselves’’ as they await their Sept. 10 season opener for validation that their preparation put them in position for early success.
There is no way to know, of course, what the work in the summer will lead to as the temperature drops and the stakes get higher. But there is one unequivocal certainty coming out of the past month — and, really, stretching back into the spring — that can already be considered an early victory for the Giants: They have their health, and at this time of year, if a team has its health, it has everything.
Getting the team to the starting gate as intact as possible is one of the deepest concerns among general managers. As the saying goes, the injury rate in the NFL is 100 percent, as in, there will always be injuries. Which players are hit with injuries, and when they occur, is often a key barometer in determining if a team can successfully navigate through a difficult stretch or else helplessly fall by the wayside.
At the moment, heading into the week before the first real week of work for the games that count, the Giants are in fine shape. Every one of their projected 22 starters is expected to line up for the season-opener against the Cowboys. Moreover, none of the 22 projected starters is carrying any sort of ache or pain or ailment into the season, other than the normal aches and pains associated with putting on a helmet and shoulder pads and repeatedly running into another large human.
