The Giants and Jets started their respective offseason programs on Monday.
Some notable names were not in attendance. Because of money.
The Giants went back to work without Saquon Barkley (stewing over his franchise tag) and Dexter Lawrence (waiting for his big payday. And the Jets did not have Quinnen Williams in the building for the same reason.
To this we say: Who cares.
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No, really. This is all voluntary and largely meaningless. No one should waste any time worrying about Lawrence and Williams until they skip the mandatory three-day minicamp in June. And no one should expect to see Barkley until the start of training camp given he is technically not on the roster at this point. It is all just noise otherwise.
We will leave you with something we can all agree on: MetLife Stadium stinks. Says Mike Francesa:
When it comes to building ballparks in the metropolitan area, and there are a lot of reasons why, we do a terrible job. We are the biggest city in the world, we are the most important city in the world, and we never build a show place in sports. No one ever says, ‘Oh, you’ve got to get to this ballpark in New York.’ You can say that about what they built in Atlanta, you can that about what they built in Dallas, you can say about what they built in [Los Angeles]. … We don’t build places like that.
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James Kratch can be reached at james.kratch@xlmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @jameskratch.