Dalvin Tomlinson leads Giants' group of 2020 player representatives

The NFL Players Association announced the player representatives for each team across the league earlier this week. For the Giants, two players have been nominated as reps for the very first time.

Fourth-year defensive lineman Dalvin Tomlinson will serve as the Giants' player rep, while veteran defensive back Logan Ryan, second-year defensive back Julian Love and veteran linebacker Blake Martinez will serve as the team's three alternate reps.

This is the first time that Love or Martinez has been nominated as reps for their team.

Tomlinson and Martinez also both serve as the Giants' two defensive team captains.

Reps are selected by their locker rooms every even-numbered year, and represent their team to the union and the union back to their team. As it states on the NFLPA's website, the reps "vote on the business and direction of the union."

Jason Garrett not focused on past in return to Dallas

Jason Garrett might be the most popular person in the Giants' headquarters this week and it has nothing to do with his affable personality or engaging nature.

The Giants Sunday will face the Dallas Cowboys, for whom Garrett coached the previous 13 seasons, including the last 9½ as their head coach. Garrett knows the Cowboys, their personnel and is even familiar with their offensive scheme (coordinator Kellen Moore called Dallas' plays in 2019) and will face them for the first time since leaving the organization.

Everybody, it seems, wants Garrett to share whatever he can about the Cowboys that will help the 0-4 Giants earn their first victory of the season.

"Obviously, with Jason's knowledge of personnel within the building, we've talked and discussed different things offensively and defensively with him," coach Joe Judge said. "He's not the only coach who came from that team as well. We try to use everyone we can in every situation."

"I'll be talking to Jason a little bit more and will continue to do that," safety Logan Ryan said. "They have a new offense, coordinator, new head coach over there, a little bit of a different system. We'll just learn the tendencies of (quarterback) Dak (Prescott). … I have to ask a couple questions to figure out how to slow that up. I have my work cut out for me. Any hint, and tip I can get, I'm one known to take it and see if it applies. I definitely will be asking him, buy him some lunch this week. Maybe dinner, we'll be staying late."

Garrett said those discussions are common throughout the league.

"I think that's part of the process every week in the NFL," he said. "You're always trying to understand who you're playing against. So much of that comes from your film study and watching your guys play on tape, but a lot of it comes from your memory of a player coming out in the draft and how you got to know him, or maybe you were around that player or somebody else from the staff or the team was. I don't think you want to get overly focused on those things. But if there's a resource in the building, you certainly want to take advantage of it. I think my experience has been most players and coaches through the years have been generous with that knowledge. I don't think it should be overused. I think the process we go through each week in trying to understand who the opponent is and what we want to do is the best process. But any time you have a resource that you can use in the building, I think it would be helpful for everybody."

Like Garrett, offensive line coach Marc Colombo and offensive assistant Stephen Brown also came to the Giants directly from Dallas. Senior offensive assistant Derek Dooley was on Garrett's staff from 2013-17.

In addition, defensive coordinator Patrick Graham was the Green Bay Packers' inside linebackers coach/run game coordinator in 2018 under Mike McCarthy, who succeeded Garrett in Dallas.

Practice Photos: Prep for Cowboys underway

Check out the gallery below to view photos from Thursday's practice as the Giants gear up for their Week 5 matchup against the Cowboys in Dallas.