‘We believe everything starts up front’

NFL teams go through a sizable personnel turnover from year to year and the New York Giants are no different.

Last season, the first under general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll, saw the Giants reshuffle the deck so to speak in an effort to change both the culture and the direction of the franchise.

As they head into training camp next month, there are not many faces on the roster that were still here at the end of the 2021 season.

On offense, just four starters from that team — quarterback Daniel Jones, running back Saquon Barkley, wide receiver Sterling Shepard, and left tackle Andrew Thomas — remain.

On defense, five starters are still here: linemen Dexter Lawrence and Leonard Williams, linebacker Azeez Ojulari, safety Xavier McKinney and cornerback Adoree’ Jackson.

In an interview on SiriusXM with hosts Jim Miller and Pat Kirwan, Daboll discussed the ongoing metamorphosis NFL rosters go through year after year.

“It’s all about improvement as you know,” Daboll said. “You’re never the same team as you are from the year before and that’s the way the National Football League works.”

The Giants now have had two full offseasons under Schoen and Daboll and they are still molding the roster into the shape they need to realize their vision. Lots of new faces will be in camp at the end of July.

“So it’s not a full reset, but there’s, you know, call it 30% new roster people on your team,” said Daboll. “And I think we made some progress in the OTAs but, you know, certainly a long way to go, looking forward to getting the training camp.”

The key to winning in the NFL has not changed over the years. Former Giants head coaches Bill Parcells and Tom Coughlin both believed that ‘big people help you compete’ which hasn’t been lost on Daboll.

“We believe everything starts up front,” Daboll said, “with your offense and defensive lines and we think we’ve either added some pieces, retained some pieces. These guys are good players.”

We’ll see. As noted above, they’ve made wholesale changes along the lines and doubled down on Lawrence, the Pro Bowl nose tackle.