Will Hernandez needs more playing time
Ever since veteran offensive guard Will Hernandez went on the COVID-19 list earlier in the season, he hasn’t started a game. For the past eight weeks rookie Shane Lemieux has taken over in his spot. And this isn’t because Hernandez can’t play because he was cleared shortly after being placed on the COVID list.
It sounds like the Giants would rather develop Lemieux. New York head coach Joe Judge was asked about Lemieux getting a lot more playing time than Hernandez.
“We’re continuing to roll our linemen throughout the game. There hasn’t been a designated snap count on any player going in,” explained Judge. “Look, I’ve let [Dave DeGuglielmo] have some autonomy in terms of as the game gets going, the flow goes, to put in what we think is best for the schemes that we’re running. We check in and we talk continuously throughout the week.
“The plan is to play all of our guys at the game. It’s always been our plan and to use guys continuously. You saw Matt (Peart) play as well last night. We’ll continue to use Will, and we’ll rotate all three guards going forward.”
As Giants Wire pointed out, the Giants aren’t rotating right guard Kevin Zeitler out, so if I had to make a guess right now I would say that Hernandez is being phased out for some reason.
I understand the Giants wanting to develop Lemieux because it will only help them if someone goes down with an injury, but Hernandez is a guy that they used a second round pick on in 2018, that has been outplaying Lemieux this season.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against playing Lemiuex, but I think Hernandez deserves to start and should get at least half of the snaps. It’s not like Lemieux’s Pro Football Focus grades have been good because they haven’t. So we know he’s not outplaying Hernandez. He has an overall PFF grade of 29.9 compared to Hernandez’s 58.1.
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