Will the starters play vs. Eagles? Giants head coach Brian Daboll won’t say

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — There isn’t much on the line for the Giants when they take the field on Sunday in Philadelphia which has raised the question all week whether head coach Brian Daboll will play his starters. If anyone expected that question to be answered Thursday, they were sorely mistaken.

Daboll would not say if he would have his starters suit up and said that he would make the decision on who would play on Friday night. The Giants have gone through practice as they normally would this week so far.

“We’ll treat it like our normal preparation then we’ll make our decisions for whatever we think is right,” Daboll said.

The Giants punched their ticket to the playoffs last weekend with their 38-10 win over the Indianapolis Colts at MetLife Stadium. New York is locked into the sixth seed regardless of the result this upcoming Sunday and could want to be cautious with its starters headed into their first playoff trip since 2016.

The Eagles have significantly more to play for on Sunday, with a chance to secure the top seed in the NFC with a win, but a loss could see them tumble all the way down to fifh in the conference. The Giants surely would enjoy throwing a wrench in the Eagles’ season, but more important is the health of New York going into the postseason.

“I think the philosophy is our philosophy,” defensive coordinator Wink Martindale responded when asked his thoughts on resting playrs. “Where that’s at right now up to Dabs and I’ll go with whatever Dabs wants to do. I’m excited, you know, all thoughts and all eyes are looking forward to play in Philadelphia. Going into that stadium and playing a division rival.”

Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka echoed a similar sentiment that the focus was preparing for the Eagles and Daboll will make the call on who would play. New York has won two of its last three games going into the final game of the regular season.

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The Giants will face either the Minnesota Vikings or San Francisco 49ers in the playoffs, and players inside the locker room expressed a willingness to do whatever the coaching staff felt was best to win.

“I mean, I’m really willing to do whatever is best for the team at this point, which I have been doing all year,” Leonard Williams said. “Whatever is gonna get our team to the best position. At the end of the day our goal, every team’s goal in the beginning of the season is to get a championship and that’s our goal at the end of the day. And whatever is going to be the best for us to get to that point I’m gonna do it.”