Giants counting on Brian Burns to break cycle of recent big-money mistakes
NY Post
The Giants didn’t pay record-setting money for slow Burns, sick Burns or freezer Burns.
While the return of Daniel Jones from a torn ACL and Malik Nabers replacing Saquon Barkley as the offensive focal point might be the two-pronged talk of the first few days of training camp, pass-rusher Brian Burns is about to discover that effort, durability and production constantly are judged under the New York microscope.
The Giants think he is the perfect fit to check all three boxes.
General manager Joe Schoen’s decision to trade for Burns and sign him to the largest defensive-player contract in franchise history (five years, $141.5 million) is a domino that rippled across the rest of an offseason — most notably the second round of the NFL draft — that ends Tuesday when veterans report for camp.
The pressure is on Schoen for the trade result to turn out better than the other signature decision of his three-year tenure: Re-signing Jones to a four-year, $160 million extension in 2023.
And it is on Burns — the NFL’s third-highest-paid but 10th-best edge-rusher, according to a recent ESPN poll of league sources — to buck a recent history of disappointing introductory seasons by the Giants’ big-ticket additions.
With the Yankees on an impressive run of mostly correct decisions, there’s some reason to leave them alone and just let the best team in the American League continue to roll. But they did raise serious doubt and leave room for suggestions (and even ridicule) following maybe the most inexplicable decision of this season, or any season.
The Giants have never been 0-2 under Brian Daboll, until now. They were 2-0 and flying high in 2022 and 1-1 after a rousing comeback in Arizona in 2023. So, this represents a low point as far as early-season difficulties for Daboll and the Giants. They had no business beating the Vikings in the opener and no business losing to the Commanders in Week 2. But here they are.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Harrison Butker kept making a lonely walk to midfield after each quarter Sunday to check on the direction of the wind, which tends to swirl inside Arrowhead Stadium. He did it one last time during the 2-minute warning, when his Chiefs were trailing the Bengals by two and trying to give him a winning field-goal attempt.