Giants Q&A: Jenkins says of a trade, 'Whatever happens, it happens'
Giants cornerback Janoris Jenkins tackles Detroit Lions wide receiver Danny Amendola during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2019. Credit: AP/Rick Osentoski
Tuesday is the NFL’s trading deadline. How will cornerback Janoris Jenkins, who reportedly is being shopped around by the Giants, spend that day?
Celebrating. “Tuesday’s my birthday,” he said in the locker room after what might have been his final game with the Giants (which included an interception). With the Giants having lost four straight to fall to 2-6 at the midway point in the season, they are likely to be sellers rather than buyers in the NFL marketplace. Last year they traded two defensive starters, so they are not averse to swapping players for future picks.
Will Jenkins be stressed about the possibility of being traded?
It doesn’t seem that way. “I don’t give a [expletive] what they do, ya hear?” he said of the fluidity of the situation. “I just play football. Whatever happens, it happens.” Asked where he thinks he will be on Wednesday after the deadline passes, Jenkins said: “Somewhere on a football field. It don’t matter to me. You all know that.”
Did Saquon Barkley think the fumble by Daniel Jones returned for a touchdown was an incomplete pass?
He said he did. “I thought with the form and how it came out that it couldn’t be a fumble,” he said of the pass toward him from Jones. A hit from Jarrad Davis on a delayed blitz, however, forced the throw to go backward, and it was ruled a lateral. Former Giants linebacker Devon Kennard scooped it up and scored while Barkley trailed.
“We both kind of slowed down a little bit, chilled, he just got to the ball quicker than me,” Barkley said. “Still, I have to find a way to make that tackle . . . Today we lost by what, a touchdown? That’s over-thinking things, but stuff like that matters.”
Who was most critical of Barkley for that play?
Barkley. “There’s no excuse,” he said, noting that coaches tell running backs to cover the ball in those situations just in case it is ruled a fumble. “That’s not who I am, that’s not the type of player I am, that’s not the reason why I’m the captain . . . I lacked effort on that. I have to be better for my team.”
Why did Pat Shurmur go for the two-point conversion when he did?
The Giants trailed 24-19 with about five minutes left in the third after Jones hit Evan Engram for a touchdown. An extra point — no sure thing, given Aldrick Rosas’ earlier miss and his missed field goal last week — would make it a four-point game. Two points would make it a three-point game. That’s what Shurmur wanted to accomplish. “You’d cut the [lead] to a field goal,” he said. “That’s what it was . . . It was a two-score game, that put us within a field goal.”
It would have, anyway. Jones’ pass for Darius Slayton was incomplete and the Giants spent the rest of the game chasing those three points.
Given the score and the time remaining, was that the right call to go for two?
It was probably right on the cusp. “It depends on where it comes in the game,” Shurmur said, suggesting that any earlier and he would have gone for the extra point.
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.
