Veteran Giants quarterback Jameis Winston and rookie tight finish Thomas Fidone II had an animated and prolonged dialog within the locker room after Thursday’s apply that exposed how participant accountability occurs within the NFL.
Winston and Fidone run offensive performs collectively day by day on the Giants‘ scout staff. Winston is an Eleventh-year veteran making an attempt to guide behind the scenes who remains to be desirous to play effectively and produce each time his subsequent alternative comes.
Fidone is a seventh-round rookie who — even when he is perhaps on the verge of his NFL debut Sunday in New Orleans — is making an attempt to remind the group why he can assist this staff weekly on Sundays.
So typically the rookie requires constructive criticism from the veteran QB. Generally the QB receives clarification from the rookie. Generally there’s disagreement on how a message is delivered and never essentially about what that message is.
Winston and Fidone each need to make one another higher. They each need to play and win. However each relationship is completely different.
Jameis Winston of the New York Giants in motion throughout a NFL Preseason 2025 sport between New York Jets and New York Giants at MetLife Stadium on August 16, 2025 in East Rutherford, New Jersey.(Photograph by Ishika Samant/Getty Photographs)
“Players being able to hold players accountable is way more important than coaches communicating to players,” Winston stated.
JW: “An necessary a part of management is figuring out who you’ll be able to push and figuring out who it’s a must to reward on a regular basis. And I feel actually, on this technology, children, they don’t take constructive criticism effectively. So how do you problem them? You must spend extra time with them. You must see what makes them go, what pushes them.
“Like last night, we [Fidone and Winston] had a long conversation at dinner, like, ‘Hey, who was one of your favorite coaches?’ So me understanding what is going to get you to be your best, and what can I do best to serve you? Because when you’re on the scout team, on the practice squad, every single day is competition time. So that’s my number one guy when I’m out there. And he’s trying to get better, and he’s a rookie. So I think it’s always that balance between knowing your teammates, knowing how they respond.”
Winston, a former No. 1 general choose, has performed for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, New Orleans and Cleveland Browns. In the intervening time, he’s the No. 3 quarterback on the Giants’ depth chart behind Jaxson Dart and Russell Wilson.
However that simply retains him hungry: hungry to enhance himself for his subsequent alternative and hungry to convey others, like Fidone, together with him.
“I’m always gonna push everybody, because I hold myself accountable, and I expect everybody else to hold me accountable, as well,” Winston stated. “But I think it’s my duty to ensure that young guys don’t lose that youthfulness. When you’re a rookie, you gotta stay hungry. Especially if you’re an undrafted rookie or you know that you are capable of playing in the NFL but you’re not getting that opportunity yet, I want you to take that serious.”
“Because that is serious,” Winston added. “Because I was once that, and that’s why I want to be back. And I know how that feels, and I know [what] it looks like. So being able to share that with him and fill him in on certain things like, ‘Hey, this is how it’s done.’ [Tight end] Cam Brate was my guy at Tampa. I know what it looked like. I know how he worked. Because also I could communicate differently to Cam Brate than I did Fidone. So I think it’s consistently learning your guys and being the best resource you can to them.”
Thomas Fidone II of the New York Giants jumps towards the tip zone throughout the second half of a NFL Preseason 2025 sport between New England Patriots and New York Giants at MetLife Stadium on August 21, 2025 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. (Photograph by Ishika Samant/Getty Photographs)
TF: “I feel that’s simply our relationship. We’re very arduous on one another, actually. Whether or not it’s within the locker room or at apply, we’re very a lot the identical in some methods. Like if we see one thing, we’re gonna say it. We’re not gonna maintain again. And considered one of us would possibly disagree. And that’s the place we’re form of studying one another, in that approach.
“Me and his relationship has definitely grown, and him being somebody I’ve looked up to since I was young. And getting those coaching points from him and being able to learn him and learn where he’s coming from, I think it’s been big for us and our relationship, for sure.”
JW: “When me and Fidone have a dialog, we each say we’re simple guys. So if we’re straight ahead guys, after I shoot it to you straight, you’ll be able to reply straight, however I stand on what I stated. Whether or not you need me to sugar coat it or nevertheless you need me to relay the message, I simply need the message to get via. If what I’m saying shouldn’t be getting via to you, then what I’m saying shouldn’t be value it. I need to have the ability to communicate to you in a way that you simply obtain it.
“So it doesn’t matter if they can take constructive criticism or if you’ve got to praise them all the time. If i’m not able to reach you or if you’re not comprehending what I’m saying and it’s not making you better, than I have to change up how I’m presenting it to you. And I told him, shoot, I’m learning you, too. We had training camp, I’m learning everybody in here who we can communicate with. But the standard is the standard, and we’re always gonna push to be our very best, because that’s what we love — we want to be the best we can possibly be.”
Winston added of Fidone: “I admire that about him: He works his butt off, and he wants to be great. I asked him, ‘Have you ever had anyone lead you? He’s like, ‘I really never had a leader from the offensive side outside of a coach.’ And I was like ‘Well, OK. And I want you to do the same thing for me.’ I don’t want this to be just a one-sided thing because then you’re gonna feel like I’m picking on you. I want you to have that freedom to say, ‘Man, Jameis, I was open here, you missed me on this, did you see this?’”
Fidone stated if one thing goes fallacious and wishes it corrected, Winston is “gonna call it out.”
TF: “We’re much alike in that way. We’re very direct. To the point where it’s hard to see where we’re coming from sometimes, where I’m coming from, where he’s coming from. So that’s where me and him are just learning each other.”
JW: “We can have that collaborative [conversation], because I feel like collaboration leads to success. But if we take things defensively, then no one’s gonna get better. And if I’m saying something or I’m not able to communicate it in a way that you receive it, then we’re definitely not gonna get better. We’re just gonna be beefing. And I don’t want things to go around in a circle, because now it’s not progressive. And I want us to be progressive. Because t’s all about the work getting done and us doing our best.”
The veteran quarterback has seen groups succeed and fail, and he stated participant accountability is a constant a part of a superb tradition.
“I believe self-policing, players being able to hold players accountable, is way more important than coaches communicating to players about what they do,” he stated. “The truth that we are able to sit in a gathering room and I inform Jaxson, ‘Hey, Jaxson, look at your footwork on this.’ And he’s like, ‘OK, cool.’ Or Russ can share, ‘Hey, Jameis, your front shoulder flew open on this.’ That self-policing is the way you get higher.
“Because they’re out there doing it. And then you’re like, ‘OK, he saw this, let me work hard at this.’ Self-policing, everywhere I’ve been, you win by player-to-player collaboration, not just coaches being on your butt.”
Fidone is the one scout staff tight finish on the Giants’ roster, so every single day he’s getting a ton of reps.
“It goes from special teams straight to scout team,” he stated. “So it’s really eight to 10 to 12, 14 reps [on special teams] back-to-back-to-back. And I’ll get maybe one or two blows on scout if that, sometimes none. So it can definitely push me.”
However Fidone stated he’s a lot extra superior within the playbook now that he’s in a position to play “very relaxed” and is “not thinking too much.”
So each time his alternative comes, even when it solely begins on particular groups, he believes he’s prepared.
“I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from coaches in terms of doing my job and doing it at a high level and being on scout team, giving the ones a good look,” Fidone stated. “Each rep is a chance to indicate what I can do with my means, and I undoubtedly assume I’ve achieved that.
“It’s just a matter of time before the opportunity comes when I’m able to do that on Sunday,” he stated. “And once that time comes, I won’t be looking back. Hopefully I can keep stacking those days and making more opportunities.”
That confidence is nice. So is the steering and suggestions of a veteran like Winston, who shares Fidone’s urgency — each for himself and for the rookie tight finish’s budding profession.
