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Glick’s picks: Maybe time for Giants to move on from Jones and Barkley

If you follow her tweets, you know that Assemblymember Deborah Glick is an avid pro football fan — especially of her hometown Giants. And her commentary is usually spot-on. Although she hasn’t been tweeting much about it lately, she’s definitely still watching football. The Village Sun asked the veteran Albany pol for her take on the Giants’ season.

BY DEBORAH J. GLICK | For Giants’ fans, this was a terrific season with a chance to play in a wildcard game, the first level of playoff games. This is the first time since 2011 that the Giants had an opportunity to play in any playoff game. This season’s success is largely owing to our new coach Brian Daboll. He came to the Giants from the Buffalo Bills where he was the offensive coach on a very successful team. He has made an immediate impact on the team’s confidence and greatly improved the level of play, perhaps more than we could have hoped.

For those fans who are disappointed that the team didn’t go further in the playoffs, one only must look to the quality of the quarterbacks on the other teams that were more successful. While Daniel Jones, the Giants quarterback, has improved tremendously this season, it is hard to see him as anything other than a second-tier QB. Saquon Barkley, the team’s premier running back, has made an impressive return from a past injury and had a great season, but running backs have limited careers.

These two players, Jones and Barkley, may have reached free agency where they can negotiate a new contract. Both players think their performance this year merits a significantly larger compensation package, but I am not so certain that their future value to the team is worth dedicating so much of the team payroll when there are many other critical positions to fill.

There were bright spots on the defensive side of the ball. Kayvon Thibodeaux is a rookie linebacker, a first-round pick, who has already demonstrated why he was a much sought-after new player. Along with nose tackle Dexter Lawrence, Thibodeaux has given the Giants a real quarterback-rushing duo that we have long needed.

However, the Giants still suffer from too few high-quality receivers, and without two strong capable receivers and a quarterback with better instinct and more accurate passing, the New York Giants will continue to be a second-tier team. But good fans always hope that next season will be the winning season.

Glick, who represents the 66th Assembly District, is a Greenwich Village resident and football fan.

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