1️⃣3️⃣ & ? on the field! pic.twitter.com/Vp7gwEs33n
— New York Giants (@Giants) June 13, 2018
Eli Manning began the second day of New York Giants mandatory minicamp on fire, much to the delight of all involved.
The New York Giants second day of mandatory minicamp went similar to the first day as Odell Beckham Jr. and Landon Collins only participated in their respective position drills.
Both looked sharp during drills and Collins showed no ill-effect from having a second surgery in April on the forearm he fractured in December as he was doing pushups after dropping a pass during defensive back drills.
When you drop a pass in practice you're doing push ups. @EliteSportsNY #GiantsPride #NYG pic.twitter.com/dd41qbXoBj
— Jason Leach (@JasonKLeach) June 13, 2018
Eli Manning began the first session of 11-on-11 on a hot streak, completing three consecutive passes, two of them to Cody Latimer who was once again working with the first-team offense. The other was to Sterling Shepard on a slant route.
Kalif Raymond and Hunter Sharp were the receivers that ran with the second team offense and Roger Lewis, Travis Rudolph and Amba Etta-Tawo ran with the third team offense. The receiving corps will be one of the most intriguing position battles heading into training camp next month as Beckham, Shepard and seemingly Latimer are the only locks to make the team.
Another position battle that’s heating up is placekicker as Marshall Koehn connected on seven out of eight of his field goal attempts on Wednesday, a day after Aldrick Rosas connected on all eight of his attempts.
The first team offensive line was the same as it was on the first day with Nate Solder at left tackle, Will Hernandez at left guard, Jon Halapio at center, Patrick Omameh at right guard and Ereck Flowers at right tackle.
After practice, Flowers was asked about making the transition from left tackle to right tackle.
Q: How is it going on the right side versus the left side?
A: It is an adjustment, but it’s going well. I’m just chopping wood every day and trying to get better.
Q: You played left tackle for a lot of years. Was it tough getting the phone call that you were moving to right tackle?
A: Yeah, of course, but I love playing football, so it’s whatever.
Q: What is the biggest change between right and left?
A: Kick set. You are pushing off of your left instead of your right now. With any position change, it is just getting used to it. Muscle memory and trying to get that muscle memory in it.
Q: You had played some right tackle earlier in your college career. Has anything come back to your memory?
A: I only played like the first four games of my freshman year because our right tackle – there was a situation there. Other than that, I mostly played left tackle, so I never really got into the swing of playing it. But I think I have gotten better each OTA.
Ereck Flowers on the rumors of him being traded during draft time and if he needs to prove anything this season. #giantspride #NYG pic.twitter.com/EwW54A7cuf
— Jason Leach (@JasonKLeach) June 13, 2018
If Flowers can prove to be a solid right tackle, then the Giants offensive line has the potential to be a top 10 unit in the league.
Other news and notes:
We found out on Wednesday that Saquon Barkley is human. It didn’t seem like he dropped a pass during rookie minicamp or mandatory minicamp, but he recalled that he did drop one pass.
Saquon Barkley at the podium answering questions. He said he's dropped only one pass in all of the practices pic.twitter.com/IiDV329XqH
— Jason Leach (@JasonKLeach) June 13, 2018
“I did. I dropped one. That is something that I pride myself on. You come out here every single day and you want to be perfect. When I mean perfect, I don’t mean a perfect player, but you want to go through practice without drops. Sometimes it reassures you that you have to get back on the jugs and catching after practice. There is a ball that I caught 100 times and I dropped it because I was trying to turn up field instead of securing the catch.
I kind of worked on that after and it has not happened since. That is just a part of the game. I hate making mistakes but I love making mistakes. I love having MA’s (missed assignments) and drops. It reassures you and makes you get back on your grind, lock in and focus a little more. It is better to happen now and in practice than in Week 1 against Jacksonville or preseason against the Browns.”
Wednesday was the first time that offensive coordinator Mike Shula and defensive coordinator James Bettcher spoke with the media. Here’s their take on their respective units.
Q: How is the installation going?
Shula: “It’s been going well. Our guys have been really into it. They have had a good look in their eye all offseason, which is what we would have expected. We still have a ways to go, but as we think back to where we’ve come from, we’ve come a long way. So we’re just going to keep trying to get better. We have one more day tomorrow and then get ourselves ready for training camp.”
Mike Shula at the podium after practice pic.twitter.com/Rn3D3tvMQ0
— Jason Leach (@JasonKLeach) June 13, 2018
Bettcher:
Q: What is the difference between the defensive pressure of your defense versus others?
Bettcher: “I think the thing that we focus on, however, and whenever we’re coming, is that it’s about beating your man. If there’s anything that we focus on and talk about, it’s about lining up over the guy you’re going to play against. And you might be moving down to that guy to rush against him.
“You might be a safety blitzing and on a back, you might be a safety on a tackle. There’s going to be different guys in different situations that are going to have one-on-ones. As much as you talk about one-on-ones on the perimeter in the pass game, covering your man, there’s other guys that have to win too to help those guys out. And if we’re going to be any good as a pressure team, we’re going to have to win some of those one-on-ones inside, not just outside on the perimeter.”
Following Thursday’s final mandatory mini-camp practice, the players won’t be back until training camp opens at the end of July. But don’t think the players will take it easy from now until training camp.
I spoke with outside linebacker Kareem Martin and he told me what his plans are for the next several weeks.
“It’s full training mode now. In the offseason, you can take a trip or so on the weekend but not now because five weeks isn’t a lot of time. It seems like a long time but training camp will sneak up on you and training camp is a grind so you have to prepare your body and don’t get out of shape because you can lay around for a week and lose everything we worked on for the last few weeks or however long we’ve been here.”
Expect the rest of the players to have the same mentality as Martin during their time off as the Giants look to rebound from a 3-13 season and contend for a playoff berth.
