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Notebook: 6-2 Giants look to recharge for 2nd half

BRIAN-DABOLL

Self-scouting over the bye week is like making in-game adjustments. You can't wait until halftime to start thinking about them.

"You're always self-evaluating yourself each week," coach Brian Daboll said Monday afternoon, 10 hours after the team returned from its cross-country flight back from Seattle. "We have quality control coaches. We have analytics. Then the coaches do it. We try to do it on a week-to-week basis and try to improve on things that maybe we're not doing as good of a job as we'd like to do. We try to build off some of the positive things. So, we'll always continue to do that. But really, we're in right now looking at this tape. And [with the] extra days, we'll have some time to get on Houston and look at a few other things."

The Giants have reached the midway point of Daboll's first year as head coach. The team went 3-1 in both the first and second quarters of the season for a 6-2 overall record, the franchise's best through eight games since 2012. A common refrain among fans is you couldn't realistically ask for a much better start to the new era, but the people inside the building can't think that way. To steal an oft-repeated line from Daboll, this league will humble you quickly.

"That's why, this time right there, you kind of look everything holistically," Daboll said. "But each week, you're doing that. And that's what Mondays are for and part of Tuesdays. I do that every week, whether it's decisions throughout the game, revisit the game, go onto the next week, look at a ton of different stuff. I think you need to stay on top of that, it's kind of like a game. You can't wait until halftime to make some adjustments. You got to keep doing that throughout the game, and we've done a lot of that. I've done a lot of that since I started."

Following Sunday's 27-13 loss to the Seahawks that snapped a four-game winning streak, the Giants will look to get back on track after the break. They traveled to London, Jacksonville, and Seattle in a four-week span leading into the bye week, but they will play four of their next five games at home. That stretch starts with a visit from the Houston Texans (1-5-1) in Week 10.

"At this point in time during the season, I think everyone's tired, coaching-wise. Everyone's sore, playing-wise." Daboll said. "It's just the nature of this league, and you just keep on pushing through. I think you need to try to take advantage of a little bit of downtime to recuperate to get some rest and to come back fresh and ready to go for us this last half of the season where we have out bye."

Daboll added, "I just take it day by day. Those are in the past; put money in the bank so to speak. We're sitting at 6-2. We have nine games left that are on the schedule, and we've got to take them one week at a time."

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Here's what else you need to know from Daboll's last press conference until after the bye week:

*Players were at the facility on Monday but will have the rest of the week off to heal and rest up for the second half of the season. Coaches are scheduled to stay around a few more days and then get a long weekend.

*All trading ends at 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Nov. 1. Will the Giants be active in the next 24 hours?

"I'm pretty tired right now, so I'm not going to be too active," Daboll said, tongue in cheek. "I'm not going to be running or jogging or anything like that. You said for the trade deadline? … Oh, I thought you said active. Long flight. I don't know, we'll see. We'll see. Those are conversations that I'll have with Joe and take each of them as they come."

General manager Joe Schoen, who will speak to the media on Tuesday, already made one move last week, trading wide receiver Kadarius Toney, their 2021 first-round draft choice, to the Kansas City Chiefs. In return, the Giants received Kansas City's compensatory third-round pick and the team's original sixth-round selection in the 2023 NFL Draft. The third rounder is a compensatory choice the Chiefs received after the Chicago Bears hired Ryan Poles as their general manager.

"Joe and I are in constant communication," Daboll said. "Lock-step on a lot of things. We talk about pretty much everything there is to talk about in an organization. That's just how we approach it. That's really no different to game management or free agency or draft. There's always communication."

*On the injury front, Daboll said he is "hopeful" to get back wide receiver Kenny Golladay after the break, but it is too soon to tell. Golladay has not played since Week 4 due to a knee injury.

*Rookie linebacker Micah McFadden played 27 snaps on defense in Seattle (he averaged 11 in his first seven games) and recorded his first career sack.

"Continual improvement," Daboll said when asked what he's seen from the fifth-round pick out of Indiana. "He's done the right thing, on and off the field. We use a lot of packages on defense and shuffle a lot of guys in and out; and that was something that we were going to do this week and give him some chances. He made the most of them."

*Darius Slayton led the Giants in receiving for the third time in four weeks and is now second on the team in yards from scrimmage among skill players (quarterback Daniel Jones has run for 363 yards). Slayton's 232 scrimmage yards trail Saquon Barkley's 968, a disparity of 736 yards.

"I've been part of teams where it's been balanced. I've been part of teams where it's high on one end, high on another," Daboll said. "I think everybody needs to continue to improve on their craft. As far as Darius goes, I've said this before – a few weeks ago – it started off with Green Bay, he's worked hard. He's kept his head down. He's been a good teammate. You're starting to see some of the results. He's earned some of the playing time he's gotten here these last few weeks. And we'll continue to need him to keep improving and make those plays for us."

*With the exception of Sunday, the Giants have thrived in crunch time with the most comeback wins in the league. But is that style sustainable throughout the course of a long season?

"I'd say most games come down in this league to one-score games – a lot of them, a high percentage of them," Daboll said. "So, usually the teams you're playing are good. It's a back-and-forth game. A lot of games are won that way. Obviously, you're always looking to improve; those chunk plays help you in moving the ball and scoring points. We'll continue to look at that and figure out ways to try to improve that area. But again, most of these it's not like you're used to coaching in some colleges, and it's over in the first quarter. These games are back and forth, and unfortunately yesterday we left out a few plays that if we hadn't been making those mistakes, we'd given ourselves a chance. Yesterday just got away from us."

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