EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Safety Jabrill Peppers will remain idle on his 25th birthday.
The Giants today announced that Peppers, the team's strong safety, will not play on Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams in SoFi Stadium. Peppers injured his ankle after playing only nine defensive snaps in the Giants' loss last week to the San Francisco 49ers.
The only other player on the roster in danger of not playing is, ironically, free safety Julian Love, who is questionable with knee and ankle injuries. If Love does suit up, he will start alongside veteran Logan Ryan.
Should Love not play, the team's other safety options are Adrian Colbert (who missed the last two games with a quad injury), Nate Ebner (a nine-year veteran who was been primarily a special teams ace throughout his career) and Sean Chandler, who was signed today off the Giants' practice squad.
Chandler played in the first two games this season and 29 in his first two years in the NFL. He has never started a regular-season game.
This is the second time in as many years Peppers has been forced off the field by an injury. Last season, his first with the Giants, Peppers started the season's first 11 games and was second on the Giants with 71 tackles when he suffered a transverse process fracture at Chicago on Nov. 24 on his only kickoff return of the season. He was placed on injured reserve on Dec. 7 and missed the season's final five games.
Peppers has 10 tackles (4 solo) and one pass defensed this season.
His absence will force the Giants to use another punt returner. Peppers is second in the NFL with a 12.5-yard average on four runbacks. The candidates to replace him include wide receivers Golden Tate, Darius Slayton and C.J. Board.
*To make room on their roster for Chandler, the Giants terminated the contract of tight end Eric Tomlinson, who is expected to be signed to the practice squad.
*The Giants this week added an intriguing player to their practice squad - running back Alfred Morris, a two-time Pro Bowler who has rushed for 5,935 yards and 35 touchdowns in eight NFL seasons. He played for Giants offensive coordinator Jason Garrett in Dallas in 2016-17.
"Obviously, he's an experienced vet," coach Joe Judge said. "He's familiar with the system through what Jason's done already, but really, he's an accomplished player who was available. With the practice squad rules this year to allow you to have vets on the practice squad and then flex them up for games, it gives us some time to work with him and kind of see where he's at physically and for him to get acclimated to our system and our program, and kind of get into the flow of what we're doing. We'll continue to work with him and practice with him. We'll see where it leads as far as game time."
Saquon Barkley, the Giants' leading rusher, is out for the season with a knee injury he suffered in Chicago on Sept. 20.
*The Giants are 31st in the NFL with an average of 12.7 points a game.
"First, the thought process is we have to be better as a whole," wide receiver Darius Slayton said of improving that number. "Obviously, we have to execute better. That's the thought process. The encouraging thing is when you cool down and you watch film, you see things that are correctable. You see things that aren't what the opposing team is doing but what we're doing to ourselves that we can stop. That's the encouraging thing. I think we're believers that once we get out of our own way, we'll have a chance to be pretty good."
