The first episode of Hard Knocks offseason with the New York Giants will debut on Tuesday, July 2 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and will be available to stream on Max.
The five-part series will take an in-depth look at the Giants’ offseason from January through the end of the spring.
A series trailer was released a few days ago, and based on the clips they showed, this will make for some entertaining TV.
Here are the top five things to watch for in Hard Knocks.
The health of Daniel Jones
Jones is still recovering from tearing his ACL in November. Once Jones had his surgery, the expectation was that he would be ready for the start of training camp. But after he was left out of 11-on-11 drills during mandatory minicamp, there are questions surrounding the health of the 27-year-old quarterback.
There’s a clip in the trailer where Jones talks about being five months removed from surgery, and that he’s never been injured like this before. You can expect his surgery recovery to be one of the focal points of the show, which could give us a glimpse of whether he’ll be ready to participate when the team reports to training camp on July 23rd.
Related: See where Daniel Jones lands in Sportsnaut’s NFL QB Rankings
The interaction between Joe Schoen and Saquon Barkley
The biggest change for the team this offseason was that Saquon Barkley chose to sign with the rival Philadelphia Eagles. Barkley has stated that New York never intended to bring him back.
However, a clip was shown with general manager Joe Schoen talking to Barkley on the phone asking if he can give him his word on that, or are you not going to give us a chance? We should find out which side was more eager to part ways from the other.
Related: 4 Big ways the New York Giants offense will look different in with Brian Daboll calling plays
New York Giants negotiations surrounding the Brian Burns trade
One of Schoen’s priorities this offseason was finding another edge rusher to complement Kayvon Thibodeaux. The 44-year-old general manager succeeded in doing that when he made a trade with the Carolina Panthers to acquire Brian Burns and then signed him to a five-year contract worth $141 million.
To acquire the 26-year-old rusher, Schoen had to trade away the 39th overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, along with a 2025 fifth-round pick and had to agree to swap fifth-round picks in 2024 with New York getting the 166th pick and Carolina getting the 141st pick.
We’ll have to see how Burns performs with Big Blue before we can determine who won the trade, but for right now it appears the Giants got the better of the deal since a clip was shown where Schoen thought it would take two second-round picks to get the deal done. We should see some behind-the-scenes negotiations between the two franchises and how Schoen was able to finesse the Panthers into trading away one of their best players.
Related: 3 players New York Giants could sign with Darren Waller’s retirement money
What did Atlanta offer New York Giants for the sixth overall pick?
The first clip of Joe Schoen in the trailer is him receiving a call from the Atlanta Falcons while New York was on the clock with the sixth pick in the draft and asking out loud if they should keep the pick. Then he gets on the phone and asks, “What are you thinking?”
Whatever conversations he had with the Falcons, they didn’t offer enough to sway him from trading out of the sixth pick and taking Malik Nabers. Nabers has looked terrific during OTAs and seems poised to have a solid rookie season. But it will be interesting to see what Atlanta offered to move to the sixth pick in the draft.
Related: 5 New York Giants with the most to prove in 2024, including Daniel Jones and Brian Burns
What ‘money’ position will Isaiah Simmons play on defense?
It was first reported by Jordan Raanan at the Giants 100 event, that the team plans to have Isaiah Simmons in the nickel on first and second downs, and then use him on third down in a position that new defensive coordinator Shane Bowen called “money”.
Simmons is arguably the team’s most versatile defender as he can line up in numerous positions across the field. It’s unknown by people outside of the organization what exactly the money position will be, but it’s becoming clear that Simmons is going to be one of the biggest X-Factors in determining the success of the defense.
