The New York Giants have been dealing with offensive line issues for nearly a decade and despite a hefty investment in recent years, things do not appear to be getting better.

The team has been hit with several retirements and mounting injuries already this year, leaving them dangerously thin — something that showed itself in spades during a Saturday night preseason loss to the New York Jets.

Giants quarterbacks were sacked five times (including one safety) and hit 10 times. Several passes were also batted down at the line of scrimmage.

Despite the poor showing, head coach Joe Judge felt he saw some improvement from both the line and the offense as a whole.

“Well, I think as a team, we started slow on both sides of the ball. I saw some improvement as we went on, we were able to move the ball a little bit, get down there in scoring position,” Judge told reporters. “Obviously, we can’t shoot ourselves in the foot and expect to have success, so there’s some things that we can highlight in terms of the offensive line, in terms of the direction we have to go and there’s obviously a lot of things we can clean up, as well.

“I saw some positive things and some things that we’ve got to clean up. Obviously, some of the sacks and pressures on third-and-long situations — you don’t want to end any game with a safety, I mean that’s something you don’t want to do. However, there were some bright spots out there on an individual basis. I thought as a unit, the communication improved as we went on there. I thought some of the adjustments they were able to make on the sideline with (Offensive Line Coach) Rob (Sale) and those guys, in terms of handling what they were given, was positive. But ultimately we have to be fundamentally sound and play more consistent.”

The injury and depth issue was also compounded with the loss of lineman Kyle Murphy, who had his legs rolled up on in the second quarter. He was eventually forced to leave the game and replaced by Kenny Wiggins, who started at guard and struggled for all four quarters.

“Kenny’s a tough dude and he’s a football player and having to kind of answer the bell right there and play 60 minutes,” Judge said. “I don’t think there’s anyone out here right now in shape for 60 minutes of football. And Kenny is the kind of guy that’s not going to turn anything down.”

The Giants had signed veteran Ted Larsen earlier in the week but Judge wasn’t keen on thrusting him into a game without a single practice under his belt.

“Really the goal was getting him ready for Cleveland next week. I didn’t want to do anything to Ted. This guy’s obviously an older player, he’s been in the league, had a lot of success. I didn’t want to put him in a bad situation where he wasn’t fully prepared to play,” Judge said. “This guy hasn’t taken a snap in a training camp yet. I didn’t think it would be the right thing to do to put him in live game action. What we explained to him yesterday was it was basically a ‘break glass’ situation. If it was absolutely an emergency, we’d put him in. We were able to go ahead and navigate around that because Kenny was a guy that was ready to play at the time.”

Although Judge is trying to put on a brave face and portray some optimism, it’s clear the Giants have a glaring weakness along the offensive line, particularly in terms of depth, and they are trending in the wrong direction.