Note: If you want to cut through the intro and get to the meat of the practice report, skip down to Practice Observations.
So I’m on my way to the practice wondering of the weather is going to hold up when sure enough it starts to rain. They have been predicting thunderstorms and if they the team decides to head indoors practice won’t be open to the public. But the rain is not coming down hard so I decide to keep going.
When I get to the facility a half hour prior to the start of practice I am surprised to see groups of people in blue walking from the stadium lots to the center. This is odd I thought, until I realize the lots at the practice field have already filled up and overflowing into the stadium parking. In the practices I attended in 2011 and yesterday this was never required. To further my surprise, I see there is a huge line to get in wrapping itself half way around the lot at the center. In my other experiences here there is nowhere near this sort of crowd and you can just walk right in. The rain was still coming down and I was thinking to myself, this may not be happening today, and even if it does, there is no way I’m getting a seat with a view in the bleachers. That’s autograph day on a weekend for you, I guess.
I knew if I was patient I could eventually get a spot on the bleachers once people started leaving their seats to get a spot in the area they do autographs, but that could take a while and the masses of people by the fence was four or five deep already, and I’m not particularly tall, so I needed a strategy, and fast. I knew they didn’t permit people to stand in front of the bleachers, so I figured if I could get myself on the edge of that area I might be able to get some limited portion of that view, just not all of it, and not straight on. Not bad –it worked, to an extent.
So as practice was starting, they were having some challenges keeping people away from the fence in front of the bleachers. There were just too many people and not enough spots with a view. There was one man pushing a boy of, maybe 14, who was in a wheel chair with a big cast on his leg. He was in this area trying to get his boy a spot where he could see. I thought for sure they would find him a spot and asked the man and he said they told him to move because they were blocking the views from the bleachers. I could not believe it. They should have offered to let him come to the other side of the fence, or have some kind of handicapped accommodations, but apparently they didn’t and the security guys weren’t going to cut this man and his boy any slack. Not cool. In the end, they seemed to give up yelling at people to move away from in front of the bleachers and started letting kids sit there and only asked them to sit. I think eventually this man got a spot near the fence and it worked out, but this was all not well managed.
Anyway, onto the practice.
Practice Observations.
My initial views were limited to only what was right in front of me, but what I could see was right in front of me permitting me to make some physical observations of players, mostly on the defensive side. Here are some of those impressions (most of them we already know):
Mathias Kiwanuka is no longer that slender kid he was when he first came in. Maybe he’s bulked up a bit with his return to the trenches, but he looks bigger and thicker than I recall.
Boothe is a big boy. We all know his lower half, but he’s got big powerful looking arms and upper body bulk to go with it.
Amukamara looks big enough to play safety.
Aaron Curry is huge. He’s not one of those athletic narrow-waist broad-shoulder types, he’s thick and powerfully built.
Ryan Mundy has good size and looks like a KP clone physically.
Michael Jasper looks absolutely massive (is there an adjective to describe bigger than massive?) He makes every other big guy look small.
If anyone has any ideas of Cooper Taylor playing LB, you can forget it. Maybe that 3rd safety role, but there is no way he can be taking on blockers and playing the run play in play out. He’s got the weight because he is tall, but he’s narrow and built nothing like a LB. We can check back in a few years if he fills out, but for now, he’s all safety and specials.
In team drills I got some good views of the defense. They seemed to be working a lot of turnover drills. First where they would practice stripping the ball from behind the runner. Most of them would strip it out and then pick it up off the ground, but Kiwi, with his long arms, would simply reach around and take the ball from the guy’s hands. They were later doing work with the secondary playing your man but then breaking off to make a play on the ball in the air. They did a lot of work on playing your man and focusing on keeping proper positioning.
Soon after they worked on specials. Josh Brown has a boot. I did not know much about him and was wondering if he was a strong leg type, but he looked it to me today. The one thing I didn’t like about Tynes was too may kicks returned or not enough height on his kicks. I am wondering if this was one of the factors in deciding to make a change.
When it came to the passing portion Hakeem made a sweet catch on a deep ball early on and that was it for him. We’ve seen the reports from TC and I guess we will have to see how that plays out. As bad a sign as it is, early on, these types of tweaks are very common because you are not used to working and they aren’t going to push anything with him. Tyler Sash seemed to injure himself at the end and they were looking at his lower half. My guess at the time was that it was a cramp and I believe that is what TC ultimately reported. There was one other injury I saw where one of the young WRs (I can’t recall which one) looked like he jammed a finger trying to catch a ball. They were working on him and he seemed in pain.
If you were to ask me the one thing that stood out to me most today I would say it would have to be the tight ends. Both Adrien Robinson and Brandon Meyers had strong practices. Meyers looks on the small side to me where as Robinson is big and powerfully built, but both can catch. Robinson in one of his catches caught a TD on a fake field goal, but had others. Meyers in particular looks like one of those guys sure handed guys who knows how to find the holes in coverage. I came away very impressed and if we can ever find a way to solidify the line to a point where we aren’t always having to rely on TEs chipping on guys as they release, these tight ends could end up playing a very big role in the passing game.
What else?
I reported this yesterday and will repeat again today. Rookie QB Ryan Nassib is getting a lot of reps. He is getting at least as many as Carr, possible more. If I did not know any better I would might actually think they were going to give him a legitimate chance to compete for the back-up job. That said, he has a ways to go. He throws a good ball, but the timing is not there, as expected, and I think there are a lot of throws he needs work on. He seems to work well off of play action.
Some final notes:
Eli had a great looking TD to Cruz on the first play of red (cough cough green) zone.
The back up D lines were stuffing the running plays (hard to tell with no pads though).
LBs Paysinger and Curry blitzed through the middle for what would have been as sack in 11 on 11s.
Damontre Moore looked fast off the ball.
Ever other player was wearing blue shorts except Frank Okam. He was quite silly looking in his grey work out pants. Couldn’t somebody have found the guy a pair of blue shorts to wear?
Sean OHara walked by the fence a few times and received well deserved cheers of appreciation from the crowds.
As a group, the LBs seemed to have a good day. I’ll reserve judgment until the pads come on and we see some action in the preseason, but I am starting to think it would not be surprising to see this shape up to be a relatively solid group.
I guess that’s it for now. I’m sure there will be other things that come to me. I’ll post if I think of any worth mentioning.
Unfortunately I probably won’t be able to attend any more practices this season. There is an outside chance I will make it next Saturday but next weekend will be extremely busy and then I’ll be away.
So lets get this straight...you work 2 practices and you quit?
;-)
Jeez, Klaatu, gimme a break!
Hey, Marty wouldn't make that mistake.
Marty isn't here!
Yeah, no shit!
Maybe using a few as an example.
Is it really out of bounds for fans to do that? I've wondered because as a fan I never went, but if I did I want my report to be different. I read the reports, and usually everyone talks about big plays and stuff. If I get the chance I would want to do something different. Maybe corner the market on stuff like formations, and they checked down or threw a deep ball to Nicks against XYX formation out of ABC formation.
And perhaps comment like, looks like the giants are running this concept, with a check down, in the form of a swing route or arrow route by Wilson or Brown.
Just out of curiosity can one write like this?
The team may not love it, but I doubt you would be revealing anything that wasn't already available. I know I would love to see it personally. I would defer to Eric's judgement here, however.
Nicks and Cruz would have it easy if Robinson gets on the field with Wilson.
The vast majority of the time, you're seeing bits and pieces of what either the offense or defense is doing. I tried to do detailed reports (see here), and I had trouble keeping up.
Here's how I saw the offense.
You either have the various components doing drills in different parts of the field (TE's working in one area, RB's in another, QB's on another field, Linemen on another). Then you may have 7 on 7's, which are just guys going out either not covered, or covered man to man. You may have 3 QB's tossing the ball at once to 3 receivers running standard patterns (Curls, Flags, Posts, Seams, etc). You might have a QB, RB, and the line...but no WR's..doing dives, off tackle runs, and reverses.
About the only time you see full 11 on 11 (where it's serious) is the two minute drill. And I probably could write down the formations. But I won't...I'm a fan first, and I will not do scouting that another team could use (well, I did mention Wildcat, but the reporters brought that up). Even then, they were going up against base defensive coverages.
The hard part about NFL camps (Marty can probably tell you this, too) is that things are going on simultaneously!!! It's a bear trying to write things down as quickly as they happen, and the pace is furious. Again, I'll see basic stuff out there, but I'm sure that TC and KG put in their real stuff the week after "camp" is done.
I think the bottom line here is that the coaches try to keep things simple in camp; they are trying to evaluate the physical status of their players, not who knows more about the offense or defense. That's better accomplished keeping the offense and defense simple, it makes evaluations easier.
I do love your work on formations (and the discussions..that's REAL football!), that stuff is just great! Oh, and thanks again Uber!
Robinson would make the team much tougher to defend. If he can get out there and make a few plays, his speed will change the way teams defend.
Myers? Nobody in the NFL is worried about the guy. He is not a mismatch advantage for any LB. Forget about the 70+ catches. It means nothing. We need Robinson to grab this job and take the snaps.
Just throwing it out there.
fbdad,
Camp stuff is basic install anyways. It's not like I have the practice script for the day and typing the play word for word. I have the Falcons scripts from when I was there. I don't and will never post that. Anyways the stuff they will see they will get from pre season games and regular season games. I can understand your point though.
I went Saturday and was lucky enough to get a VIP pass and sit in that section. If anybody else has a connection to do this, I highly recommend it. There are limited tix given out and plenty of seats for everyone. The only thing that sucked was when the players lined up in front of us for 7 on 7's, so I had to move around to see.
Hynoski's gf was in ront of us along w/ some of the other players gf's. Hyno's was smoking hott though. I was very impressed.
I was initially impressed with how strong his arm looked in warm-ups. Then, when they started throwing the outs, he looked really weak. Inaccurate and the ball was fluttering in. I know it was the first day and all, but he really struggled with those throws.
I fully expect the Giants to keep 3 QB's. I don't think Nassib will show enough to overtake Carr as the back-up, but I also think he will show too much o risk putting on Waivers and then the PS. A lot of teams keep 3 QB's. I love DeOssie's consistancy, but it's a shame we can't use a position player to long snap for us to save that roster spot.
Kiwi did look big. I know he lost 10 lbs the 1st year he moved to LB, so I wonder if he made it a point to put it back on. Randle, Curry and Robinson also impressed me size wise.