Giants have remained mostly healthy throughout camp

There are times during Giants practices when members of the medical staff are so bored they can be seen using the various tools of their trade on each other. The team bought all that fancy equipment so someone should at least get some use out of it. The players certainly haven’t been as the rehab groups throughout the summer have been remarkably small.

Assistant general manager Brandon Brown credited that to the implementation of sports science and the use of technology to track player reps and workloads, but also to some old-fashioned psychology too.

“Guys don't want to miss practice because they understand the floor is being raised and you missing practice is an opportunity, frankly, for someone else to take your job,” Brown said. “You see it in real time. It's not just lip service. You've seen rotations of players getting reps with the ones now getting reps with the twos, guys that were fringed twos now getting reps with the ones.”

That “meritocracy” starts with John Harbaugh, Brown said, who has instilled it to the point that in each position room hangs a sign that tells the players to “earn the right.”

“It's earning the trust of the coaches, earning the trust of your teammates, earning the trust of the building,” Brown said. “It's not that you physically look like the job description. It's can you handle it and process it and execute it.”

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.