Will Giants add Jonathan Stewart and Cody Latimer to their active roster?

The Giants have two players practicing with them this week who are designated to return from injured reserve: running back Jonathan Stewart (foot) and wide receiver Cody Latimer (hamstring). What goes into the decisions to bring them back to the active roster likely will take place on the field on Sunday.

Pat Shurmur said he looks at them as emergency bodies in case the team needs to fill a spot on the 53-man team. “Those are two players that in the event we need a guy can come up,” he said. As for Stewart, who has been practicing with the team for two weeks, he said: “He’s ready to go if we need him.”

That holding pattern does not last indefinitely, however. The Giants need to make a decision on Stewart by Tuesday. They have another two weeks after that to make a decision on Latimer. If either is not activated by those deadlines, they revert to season-ending injured reserve.

So if the Giants come out of Sunday’s game against the Bears with their running backs unscathed, does that mean that Stewart’s season with the Giants is over?

"We’ll have to decide,” Shurmur said. “There could be something else that happens with the roster where it makes sense to bring him up. You’re always weighing positions of need but you’re always also looking to add the best players to your roster.”

Shurmur said, for example, the Giants had to make some roster moves this week after Quadree Henderson fractured his shoulder and with Evan Engram injured and not expected to play on Sunday. That created a domino effect on the entire roster and practice squad.

Stewart, however, is pretty one-dimensional in what he can do for the Giants. He’s a running back. So Latimer could have a better chance of picking up a roster spot in the event of an injury at another position such as, say, linebacker or defensive back, because he can do more things on the field.

"A guy who plays special teams certainly has more value than a guy who is just a scrimmage down guy,” Shurmur said. “That’s fair.”

However it works out, Shurmur said he is happy to have the options. The NFL changed the way it handles players returning from injured reserve in 2017. Prior to that, teams had to designate a player to return when he was placed on the list and could do it for only one player per season. Now, teams can use the designation twice and don’t have to declare it until the player is able to return to practicing six weeks after landing on IR.

"You never know when you’re going to lose a running back, you never know when you’re going to lose a wide receiver, so to have a couple guys in the system getting them back into it,” Shurmur said. “Whoever made the rule, I think it’s a good rule.”

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.