Giants quarterbacks and OTAs, a glove story
Giants quarterback Eli Manning instructs quarterback Geno Smith, left, during an OTA on Thursday, May 25, 2017, in East Rutherford, N.J. Credit: AP / Julio Cortez
The answer to one of the biggest mysteries of the Giants’ offseason has been solved. And it’s a bit anticlimactic.
The team’s quarterbacks have been wearing gloves on their left non-throwing hands during all of the OTA workouts over the past two and a half weeks, leaving many to wonder why.
Is it some kind of fashion statement? A preparation for the cold outdoor football games that loom in December and, maybe, January? Is it just a coincidence that three of the four passers — the veterans Eli Manning, Josh Johnson and Geno Smith — all wore the glove while rookie Davis Webb went bare-handed?
Quarterbacks coach Frank Cignetti Jr. said the answer is much more direct than any conspiracy theory floating around.
“It’s just not with the New York Giants but you look around the league and guys wear the glove on their non-throwing hand just to get more traction, more grip,” he said on Wednesday. “It’s as simple as that.”
Cignetti could not say if it works (“I’m not out there playing”) nor would he say whether Manning plans to wear the glove during regular season games (“You’d have to ask Eli”). He wouldn’t expand on the genesis of the idea, either.
“It’s just something that came up,” he said.
Certainly a glove on the left hand would not have much impact on throwing the football with the right hand, so it could be the seven fumbles, four of them lost, that Manning had in the pocket in 2016 led to the change. Whether it helps that area of his game or not remains to be seen.
Until then, only one great mystery remains in regard to the topic:
What becomes of all the unused right-handed gloves?
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.
