Daniel Jones will play Sunday for the Giants, but many of his receivers won't
From left, Giants quarterback Daniel Jones, head coach Brian Daboll and running back Saquon Barkley, attend a practice session at Hanbury Manor in Ware, England, Friday, Oct. 7, 2022. Credit: AP/Kin Cheung
LONDON — Daniel Jones will throw passes for the Giants on Sunday.
To whom is anyone’s guess.
After rehabbing his sprained left ankle all week, the quarterback was a full participant in the team’s workout in the idyllic countryside just north of London on Friday and cleared to face the Green Bay Packers at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. But two of the receivers the Giants thought might be on the field with him will not be available.
Kadarius Toney and Wan’Dale Robinson, both of whom practiced earlier in the week, were ruled out.
Robinson, recovering from a knee injury suffered in the first half of the Week 1 game against the Titans, traveled with the team but did not practice Friday before receiving his designation.
Toney was recovering from a hamstring injury, only to have his opposite hamstring act up during Wednesday’s practice in New Jersey. He did not travel with the Giants and remained home to undergo treatment.
“I feel bad for him,” coach Brian Daboll said. “He was running around and getting a lot better but unfortunately tweaked it a little bit. We’ll just get him treatment and get him ready when we can.”
The Giants also will be without Kenny Golladay, who hurt his knee in last week’s game against the Bears. He is expected to miss several weeks.
With Sterling Shepard already on season-ending injured reserve with a torn ACL, the Giants will be without their top four projected targets in the passing game.
The team’s leading receiver among the receivers, Richie James, missed practice on Wednesday with an ankle injury but has been back on the field since and is expected to play Sunday.
As for Toney, the oft-injured wide receiver’s long list of maladies has stunted his development throughout the entirety of his brief career. As of this Sunday, Toney will have appeared in only 12 of the Giants’ 22 games since they drafted him in the first round last year. He has caught four or more passes in a game only five times. He did manage to play in four straight games early last season, but even during that span he did not finish two of them (one because of a fourth-quarter ejection and the other with a first-quarter injury).
This latest malady is to the same leg that had bugged Toney during the preseason but is not an aggravation of that injury. Toney has had three different hamstring injuries between his two legs since August.
Daboll said he and general manager Joe Schoen will discuss whether it is best to put Toney on injured reserve, let him heal for four weeks and bring him back when he is completely healed.
Asked if the team has any explanation for why Toney keeps getting injured, Daboll said: “We’ll look at everything.”
Sunday, though, will be the latest game in which Jones and the Giants won’t be looking at Toney on the field.
Notes & quotes: Jones received no injury designation for Sunday, but backup Tyrod Taylor was ruled out with the concussion he suffered against the Bears. Davis Webb figures to be activated from the practice squad to be the backup on Sunday . . . Safety Julian Love cleared the concussion protocols and will play . . . The injured players besides Toney who did not travel with the Giants were Golladay (knee), linebacker Azeez Ojulari (calf), cornerback Cor’Dale Flott (calf) and practice squad defensive lineman Henry Mondeaux (ankle) . . . Defensive lineman Leonard Williams (knee) is questionable.
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.
