Notebook: Rookie class playing big roles

A more difficult adjustment for the first-year pros is dealing with losing. A 27-22 loss yesterday to the Washington Commanders dropped the Giants’ record to 2-7. They are one of nine teams with an NFL-low two victories.

The six draft choices played a combined 27 football seasons of college football. Only six of them ended with losing records, oddly one for each player. Their combined record was 210-124, a .629 winning percentage. In 2023, Nabers (LSU) and Johnson (Penn State) played on 10-win teams. Only Nubin (Minnesota) and Tracy (Purdue) played on teams that finished under .500.

“It’s new,” Nabers said after the game, in which he caught nine passes, all in the second half. “I would rather want to be coming up and trying to win than going to somebody who’s just winning and not producing (myself). You’ve got to get it from the ground up – I’d rather come from the mud like I did regularly. It feels better when you come from the mud, and you start winning successfully.”

“You’re not used to losing this often,” Tracy said. “But I also understand it’s hard to win in the NFL. For you to win, you really have to do a lot of things correctly and when I say a lot of things, I’m basically saying everything. You can’t really make any mistakes.

“But Dabs, Joe (Schoen, the general manager) and Brandon (Brown, his assistant), drafted us for a reason. They saw that we were winners, that we have that competitive nature inside of us, we’re all leaders, we’re all capable of going out there and making big plays. What I’m saying is we have the right guys in the locker room. We have to keep our head down, keep working and I think that the season will turn around for us. But we have to believe it for it to become a reality.”

Losing is difficult for all players, but it can be particularly deflating for those who are unaccustomed to it. Daboll is mindful of this and is constantly monitoring the mentality of his rookie class, collectively and individually.

“We continue to have our rookie meetings, and the coaches continue to emphasize the things that we need to do to be in the right mindset, practice with the right habits, prepare with the right habits and ultimately go out there,” Daboll said. “And again, there’s going to be some things that happen throughout a game, particularly for young guys that you’re going to have to go ahead and coach up. And we need to do that. We need to continue to do that. They’ve had some good spots here in the last few weeks of improving. And then there’s things that happened with any young player that you got to continue to correct and make sure that they’re in the right head space.”

Like any group of players, the rookies have had some dropped passes, missed tackles, and imperfect execution of their assignments. But they comprise a talented young base the Giants can build on.

*Quarterback Daniel Jones played perhaps his most efficient game of the season yesterday. He completed 20 of 26 passes for 174 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions and had season highs with a 76.9 completion percentage and a 119.7 passer rating. Jones also lost a fumble when Dante Fowler hit him just as he was trying to release a pass.

“I thought he did a nice job,” Daboll said. “The week before I thought he did a lot of good things. Again, when you lose, it doesn’t feel like any of that. But he made a lot of good plays for us. He had the batted ball, we had Malik behind it. A couple other balls that were kind of right off the tips of a couple of guys here. But I think he executed the offense well and gave us an opportunity.”

*The Giants will leave Thursday evening for Munich, Germany, where they will face the 2-7 Carolina Panthers on Sunday.

Two years ago, the Giants defeated the Green Bay Packers in London, so many of the players and coaches have experience traveling to Europe for a game.

“We’ll have a meeting here in about 10 minutes and it’ll last about a half an hour to go through all the logistics of the trip, the travel, procedures and everything that needs to be done,” Daboll said. “Then we’ll get on to correcting the tape and get our game plan ready to go. We’ll practice Wednesday, practice Thursday, leave Thursday night, sleep on the airplane and get there Friday, kind of like we did when we were in London. So, a lot to get done here in a short amount of time.”

*Daboll said kicker Graham Gano and punter Jamie Gillan, who have missed seven and four games, respectively, with hamstring injuries, have a chance to return Sunday in Munich.

*Outside linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux (wrist surgery) is eligible to come off injured reserve but is not ready to play.

*Wide receiver Darius Slayton is in the NFL concussion protocol.