A preseason game featuring backups is mostly about keeping the marquee players safely ensconced on the sideline while sorting out precious jobs at the back end of the roster.
And so, the Giants’ 10-6 loss to the Jets Saturday night in their annual summer tussle at MetLife Stadium meant nothing to the guys who will actually be out there when the real thing goes down.
None of the Giants’ anticipated starters, other than center John Michael Schmitz, took the field as the Giants closed out a 1-2 preseason in lackluster fashion.
Schmitz went out with an ankle injury and now it will be interesting to see if he can make it back in two weeks, as the Giants open their season at home Sept. 8 against the Vikings.
What transpired was important for individual players on the roster bubble but what took place earlier in the week offered more of a barometer of how ready the first-team Giants are for the games that count.
The Giants and Jets engaged in a joint practice last Wednesday and it is safe to say when the Giants boarded their buses back from Florham Park they knew they had plenty of work to do, on both sides of the ball.
On defense, some of the Giants’ worst fears — or concerns — were realized as their secondary struggled to keep the ball from soaring over their heads and into the hands of Jets receivers.
On one play, Aaron Rodgers hurled a throw to Garrett Wilson, who ran free, as Deonte Banks and Nick McCloud had much success against him. Allen Lazard beat Tre Hawkins for a touchdown.
Tyrod Taylor, who served as the Giants backup quarterback the past two seasons, uncorked one of his high-arching deep balls and Jason Brownlee ran under it.
“There were two deep balls,’’ safety Jason Pinnock told The Post. “When you really look at it, one, we just got to keep our eyes down, more disciplined down the field. It was one of those things, Tyrod hit his back foot and he let that thing fly, [Brownlee] caught it in stride, falling, running forward. We’re in the NFL. Great ball, great catch. The other one was kind of a bust. Unacceptable, something we got to fix.’’
It was not as one-sided on the field where the Giants offense went against the rugged Jets defense.
Daniel Jones ran for a touchdown and tossed a scoring pass to tight end Chris Manhertz. In the two-minute drill, Jones should have had a long completion to Malik Nabers but the rookie dropped the ball.
Mostly, the Giants looked methodical, with Jones opting for check-down throws and handing the ball to his running backs.
Why so conservative?
“All in all I think we did pretty well,’’ receiver Darius Slayton said. “The way they play defense is to kind of take away the deep stuff, make you go the long, hard way which, in a practice setting, looks very mundane and looks like we’re not getting anything accomplished. When you’re not tackling people you have no idea how far somebody would have run with a hitch or a running back with a broken run. It ends up looking like a five-yard, whatever gain. That’s how they play defense and we just took what they gave us pretty much all day. You can’t just force it up.’’
The Jets took great delight in taking it to the Giants.
“I’m sure they walked away from it feeling pretty good about themselves, they contained us pretty well,’’ Slayton said, “but I mean, I would argue in a real game you can’t play back for four quarters, at some point you have to come up. It is what it is.’’
Two joint practices with the Lions and one with the Jets offered more in the way of sustained challenges than anything the Giants starters experienced this summer, as their preseason action was limited.
“I feel it was good work, good competition,’’ Pinnock said. “When you can go against a different team, a different scheme, them trying to figure us out, us figuring them out, it’s a challenge for us and a challenge for them. Just the live action and finally getting that action vs a different color.’’
The next live action counts, for real.
