COURTESY OF NEW YORK GIANTS MEDIA RELATIONS DEPARTMENT
Opening Statement: Before we get started, I just want to take a second, this entire organization and personally, really just send our thoughts and prayers to the Tisch family and the terrible tragedy they’ve had to endure with the loss of their daughter. No one should ever have to go through that. Our hearts are all with the Tisch family, and showing support to them in whatever way we can.
To kind of catch everyone up, today was the first day of Phase 2 activities with the entire 80-man squad on the field. We were out there for a 90-minute window. Generally, what that is, we’re split up offense and defense. We can’t come together or do anything competitive against each other. But it’s an opportunity to get on the field and work football drills full speed. Get the guys out there, start working on some timing within the execution of our individual fundamentals and scheme, and build them to Phase 3 activities, which are really coming up starting Friday with practice on the field. With that being said, any questions anyone has, I’d be happy to answer.
Q: I was wondering if you could shed any light on what happened with Ross Cockrell?
A: You know what, that’s just something the front office would have a better answer for. We’ve talked with several players. Obviously, it doesn’t always work out when you’re doing negotiations of contracts. You can ask Dave (Gettleman) or Kevin (Abrams) or his agent, they’ll probably give you a better reference on what happened.
Q: You obviously have a lot of young corners. Is bringing in a veteran at that position sort of a priority?
A: Our priority is just to develop the players we have on the roster and look for any talent available on the street. I don’t care if it’s a first-year player or a 10thyear player. We’re looking for good players who can help build this program. To answer that question pretty direct, is it a priority to have a veteran? No, it’s not.
Q: I know your focus is on the field, but with what is happening in college right now, how are you guys pivoting or adjusting? What are you going to have to do scouting wise to stay on top of next year’s draft, if it happens, when it happens? How much time can you spend on it now and do you know how it’s going to work?
A: I’ll tell you what, in terms of the timeline of the draft, at this point, I’m assuming it’s on the normal schedule until the league adjusts that. But our personnel department has done a great job up to this point of really staying proactive with it. They’ve been talking throughout the summer anticipating that some colleges may cancel football. Obviously, that’s come to fruition at this point. You’re going to have to rely heavily on tape, which is ultimately the best scouting device anyway, what they do on the field. The disadvantage to that is you’re not going to see their most recent year available because they’re not going to play in a lot of places. It will be interesting to see how college football takes shape this year as far as allowing transfers, maybe within the same year, or what these conferences decide to do. They have to make their decisions on their level. We’ll adjust however we have to.
Q: I just wanted to follow up on something from last week. You mentioned you were thinking of having some scrimmages and stuff like that. I know that’s coming up in the next week or so. Can you just give us an update as to what your plan is for that phase of training camp?
A: Yeah, we’re basically going to have an intrasquad scrimmage of some type every week of training camp. The first one will be on this next Friday coming up. Not in two days, but next Friday. Look, for everyone kind of familiar with football, that will look a whole lot like every high school and college scrimmage in America. Offense on one sideline, defense on the other. We’ll create situations on the field and let them play live football all the way through. We have to get an opportunity to let our guys play at full speed. Let them go out there and experience the game and demonstrate they can operate when coaches aren’t yelling in their ears and trying to make corrections. We just have to get them out there and let them play.
Q: You talked a little bit about cornerback. I wanted to ask you about James Bradberry. What have you learned about him so far and are you seeing him take sort of a leadership role with that group?
A: I think all of our players are working on establishing leadership within their own groups. That will emerge more and more as training camp goes on. It all starts with doing your job well and putting the team first, and that’s really what leaders have to do. But I’d say specifically to James, what I’ve really seen with him in person so far is he comes to work every day with a purpose. He’s intent in the meetings. He takes diligent care of his body off the field. You can tell he’s learned through his time in the league as to how to prepare himself for a season. I’ve been very impressed with him with his mannerisms in the meetings and how he’s preparing. Now I’m anxious to get more on the field and see him in competitive situations.
Q: In terms of Jabrill Peppers, we all keep talking about how multiple your defense will be. He’s kind of been a guy since college who is a multiple player and really hasn’t fit into a certain role, per se. What have you seen from Jabrill and what do you envision as his spot on this defense?
A: The first part is what I see from him. I see energy. You hear him before you see him. You know when he’s in the room. He’s a lively guy, he brings a lot of energy to the team, a lot of energy to the locker room. You can tell he’s a football guy. He loves ball. He flies around. You can tell if guys are on the field, whether it’s conditioning, whether it’s the limited version of practice we had this morning, you can tell football guys. He’s definitely a ball guy. In terms of his spot on the defense, I’m not trying to be evasive on this, but it’s going to be whatever we need him to do right there. With his skill set, he’s going to factor into a lot of sub-packages. Traditionally, you’ve seen him play a lot in the box in different schemes and roles. He has that body type that still fits that. But he’s going to have to be able to play the deep part of the field as well as the box for us. Right now, we’re working all of our players in terms of understanding our zone concepts so they understand how we’re trying to play with the spacing on the field and reaction time. We’re trying to train them all the best man techniques within their own skill set in our schemes. We’re going to give him a swing of the bat at a lot of things. We’re going to shake it out week by week. However our opponent matches us up, he’ll be ready to take on a different position for us.
Q: Why was it important for Daniel Jones to put on weight this offseason, or muscle?
A: That’s not even a conversation we ever had. When you look at any player from their rookie year to year two, bodies change. It’s just different. In college, you work hard. In college, you’ve got a spring training program, you practice hard, you do the mat drills in the winter. But when you get to the NFL and your body is your career, guys learn to take different care. Not that they’re trying to take better care of it, because they’re trying to do their best in college, but they learn how to really maximize what they have. That comes in nutrition, that comes in the training. Obviously, he’s a guy that during the pandemic, he didn’t take time off. He really used it to his advantage for whatever he could do. I’d say in terms of the importance of him putting on weight, I think it was just important to him overall to change his body to be able to handle the duration of a season, which every rookie in the NFL, I don’t care who you are or where you come from, every rookie eventually struggles with the duration of the 16-game season. That’s
just a fact.
Q: Is there an area where it helps a quarterback to have more weight on though?
A: I think just overall body strength helps every player as an athlete with explosion and endurance on the field. You can look at it as a measure of does it help him absorb hits better. I don’t know if there’s an absolute answer to that. It depends on who the hell is hitting you. But I would just say in terms of it, he’s done everything he can to help himself on the field. He definitely came in in shape. He looks good in conditioning. We’re working right now as far as getting with his teammates and building some time.
Q: With the start of Phase 2 today, can you just say how much that meant to you to make it look more like football? Has there been any point during this whole process where you have been able to mentally forget about it for five, ten, 15 minutes and just be coaching football and not get into coronavirus, all these masks and everything, and it’s just football?
A: I think the thing we did early on in this training camp was we just established the rules and protocols we’re all going to follow, and that’s it. We don’t have to make a big issue of it every day. We know what it is, we’re working for each other’s safety and health, we’re following the rules, and when we do that, we can think about football all day. I’ve been coaching football every day here. Listen, if you like football, you truly love being on the field with the players. That’s the most fun part. Being on the field with the players, interacting, getting to coach, getting to feel their energy on the field, that’s what’s fun. Today being the real, first, true experience of having everyone on the field together, from the start of stretch right there, getting them moving, until the end of practice with conditioning, it was just a great opportunity to be out there with the guys. They get a feel for us, we get a feel for them. You’re out there coaching. They love football, we love football. Meetings are necessary to make sure we know what to do on the field, but practice is what the day is all about.
Q: This was indeed the first time you looked out on the field and saw 80 players, correct?
A: That is true, yes.
Q: Once you guys get on the field in pads on Monday, you get into another gear. I’m curious what you hope to see from a guy like Darius Slayton going into his second year, when you guys can be a little more physical and it looks a little bit more like football, especially when you didn’t take any receivers in the draft? Once everything intensifies, what are you hoping to see from Darius?
A: I hope to see an improvement and a level of intensity from everyone on the field. Look, we’re going to be moving at a fast pace come Friday, and then again on Sunday when we come back from the day off. They’re going to be moving fast, we’re going to be intent, we’re going to have an intensity in how we work. When the padded practices start on Monday, it will reduce to a 90-minute practice per league rules. We’re going to build everyone to make sure that now that we’re in pads, we can execute with the right fundamentals to play aggressive but safe. At all positions, receiver, d-line, it doesn’t matter. When the pads go on, you have to see intensity ramp up.
Q: Just a quick follow up on Peppers. Can he play what we would consider more of a traditional cornerback role for you? Does he have that versatility? The second part is how does the new rule about allowing tryouts for free agents affect how you’re going to develop this roster over the next month?
A: I’m going to answer the second question first. Regardless of whoever’s on the street, the most important thing is developing the players on your roster. That’s the most important thing. As part of the National Football League, you’re always aware of the personnel available on the street. The personnel department is always coming up with lists of who’s out there, who’s available, what the needs may be. In terms of the rules, they are what they are. We’ll work within them. But I’m not worried about guys that aren’t on our team. I’m focusing on developing the guys on our team. In terms of Jabrill with the cornerback role, we’re going to cross train all of our DBs. Based on who the receiver is, maybe there’s a game we have to use him in that kind of role. We’ll have to see where the depth and the opponent takes us based on the weekly game plan. But we’re going to work all the fundamentals with all of our players, and make sure that when they’re called on, they have a solid base to start with and they can execute what we need them to.
