Giants’ QBs Daniel Jones, Tyrod Taylor both injured

Eli Manning wandered by a gaggle of reporters waiting to get into the New York Giants’ locker room after Sunday’s game, and fielded questions about whether he would be able and willing to play next week when the Giants face the Green Bay Packers in London.

Manning responded with an emphatic “No,” both to whether he was ready to play and if he still fit in his No. 10 game jersey.

The questions, even in the kidding manner in which they were presented, were appropriate. The Giants saw both Daniel Jones and Tyrod Taylor suffer second-half injuries during their 20-12 victory over the Chicago Bears.

Jones suffered a left ankle injury late in the third quarter when he was sacked by Jaquan Brisker of the Bears. He finished that drive, which resulted in a 44-yard Graham Gano field goal, but only with a pair of handoffs.

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Taylor took over on the Giants’ next series. He threw an interception on his first series. On his second series, he scrambled for a pair of first downs. On the second scramble, an 8-yard run first down run on a third-and-7, he fumbled the ball out of bounds and left the game to be evaluated for a concussion. After the game, the Giants announced that Taylor did suffer a concussion and had entered the league’s concussion protocol.

With Taylor out 8:24 remaining, Jones returned but never threw another pass. He either handed off or aligned as a wide receiver while Saquon Barkley played as a Wildcat quarterback.

Jones said after the game that he was “a little sore,” but that he was “all good.”

Jones does not yet have a diagnosis on whether his ankle injury is considered a high ankle sprain or something else.

“I’ll go through some more tests and figure it out,” he said.

His status for next Sunday, though, is in doubt. The fact that the Giants would not even attempt to throw the ball once he re-entered the game was plenty of evidence of that.

“I think I’ll listen to the doctors and trainers and take their advice, go from there,” Jones said. “I’m gonna do everything I can play for sure.”

Jones said it was a “scary play” watching Taylor get hurt.

“Obviously it was a big collision there on our sideline. I didn’t get to see him before I went in, but I saw him after the game,” Jones said. “You don’t want to see that for a teammate or anybody playing.”

The Giants quite obviously ran a conservative, makeshift offense with both quarterbacks hurt. Especially after Jones, unable to move around, was forced to return to the game.

“I think we were prepared. I think we had some stuff in the game plan for certain situations and stuff we could go to,” he said. “And then I think also guys are, were locked into the adjustments we had to make. And it was clear communication from the coaching staff to us, and guys understood what they had to do, and we just had to go out and execute it.

So I think we got a smart group of guys, we got a smart group of coaches that are able to see that and adjust quickly and get us the assignments and we go from there. I thought we responded to that well.”

If neither Jones nor Taylor are cleared to play, the Giants will have to turn to practice squad quarterback Davis Webb. While he has been in the league since the Giants drafted him in the third round in 2017, Webb has yet to throw an NFL pass. He has appeared in one NFL game, playing four snaps for the Buffalo Bills last season.

Jones ran six times for 68 yards on Sunday, scrambling for both of the team’s touchdowns on runs of 21 and 8 yards. Taylor ran three times for 30 yards during his brief time in the game.

Long list of injuries

The Giants lost a number of other players during the game.

• Starting cornerback, Aaron Robinson, playing his first game after missing two weeks following an emergency appendectomy. suffered a knee injury when he got folded up underneath a Chicago blocker.
• Safety Julian Love left the game in the first half with a concussion. Love was removed from the game by the NFL’s independednt concussion spotter.
• Right tackle Evan Neal left the game in the second half with a neck injury. He was replaced by Devery Hamilton. Neal was available to media in the locker room post game, which is a good sign, but the extent of his injury is unknown.
• Wide receiver Kenny Golladay left the game in the fourth quarter with a knee injury. Golladay was obviously hobbled as he left the locker room after the game.
• Defensive tackle Henry Mondeaux, elevated from the practice squad for the game, was carted off with an ankle injury in the first half.
• Jihad Ward and Mark Glowinski also left the game briefly with injuries, but returned to action.

Giants head coach Brian Daboll had no injury information after the game.

“I don’t know the answers to any of the questions relative to any of the players yet,” he said. “We’ll figure that out as we get going.”

We will get more information from Daboll, hopefully, on Monday when he speaks to media via Zoom.