Head Coach Ben McAdoo
May 6, 2016
All right, first things first, congrats to Justin Tuck. What a great Giant. I never had the honor to coach him, but unfortunately I had to play against him a couple times and he is a great player and we wish him nothing but the best moving forward in the next phase of his career. With that, let’s open it up to questions.
Q: There was one play there where the second round draft pick went deep and Apple was defending him and it was a drop and an interception. Did you see that whole play?
A: I saw the end result. Eli did a great job of coming up with the football right there. I think we won early on the route but he made up for it, he had nice catch up speed right there and showed nice ball skills at the end.
Q: I know it’s early but did any position groups stand out early as being really deep?
A: Well, we didn’t get there. We will look at the tape, but right now we are just going to teach the tempo of the practice and try to make sure we get these guys right with their assignments, but at this point it is too early to say.
Q: Did you like the tempo?
A: We are a work in progress. It got better as the practice went on. The last period was well done.
Q: It seemed hectic. Is that sort of the norm with these kinds of things?
A: That is part of it. We have a bunch of guys in here, young guys who are chomping at the bit to show what they can do and earn their keep. [There are] a lot of tryout guys that want to get a chance to get in the mix and their hair is on a fire a little bit.
Q: What are you hoping to get from this for your draft picks that are going to be around?
A: Well, for the draft picks and the free agents, you are trying to teach them the way to practice, the way we go through the day and what to expect so when they get in the mix with the veterans, they are right in line with them and try to take a look at the tryout guys to see if there is anyone out there who can help us.
Q: With the tryout guys, are you looking for a specific number or just whoever impresses you?
A: Just whoever impresses and whoever has a good showing. There are plenty of opportunities out there; you never know when a guy is going to make a great impression, have a chance to be playing at the end of the season for you. Will Tye was one of those guys for us.
Q: Do any positions stick out to you? Do you look for certain positions knowing you need numbers at certain spots?
A: I think the perimeter. That is where most of the draft picks and most of the free agents come from. The perimeters look pretty good but we had some guys in the mix up front on both sides of the ball that showed fairly well.
Q: You have Ishaq Williams from Notre Dame. He has been out of football for a couple years. How hard is it to get back into this sport after that kind of a layoff?
A: I mean, it is not something that you can go out to the playground and play. You need it to be on a team and be around a team. It is tough to simulate the game. That is why having the big lapse between the end of the season and the off-season program is such a challenge.
Q: Among the 10 Canadian free agents, do you think some of them have a shot going forward?
A: Never say never, but we are going to go back and look at the tape.
Q: Where do you stand with quarterbacks? Are you comfortable with two or would you carry more?
A: Yeah, we want to carry the best players available, so if we feel we have three, if we feel we have four, we will carry that many. If not, we will carry two.
Q: Are you fine with carrying two quarterbacks?
A: Yeah, absolutely.
Q: Any early observations of Eli [Apple] and any observations of Shepard going up against Apple?
A: Well, I’ll say this about them, they look like they like football and that is a great place to start. They are cerebral guys and they didn’t have any trouble lining up or understanding their assignments, so that is a great place to start.
Q: A player like Cedrick Lang who hasn’t played a ton of football --- Is he judged any differently than someone who has played for four years?
A: Right now we are doing some evaluating, but we are just trying to teach everybody at this point on how to practice and the tempos involved in it and right now it was more, we have 22 guys out there, let’s keep them off the ground and keep them on their feet and keep them working with each other and being smart about it.
Q: Did you go back and forth whether or not you would do the field work? I saw some teams took the on the fieldwork off of the rookie mini camp.
A: Yeah, we decided to dial back a little bit. We were out here for about an hour and 29 minutes or so, and most of the heavy lifting was done within an hour and we did more assignments at the end, the jog through at the end, so we are conscious of that.
Q: Is that more so also to kind of hone in and sharpen the idea of the classroom, assignment-based stuff?
A: Yeah, it is an orientation but at the same point in time, you want them to understand that they are pro football players now and this is what they do for a living and it is hard to teach them the orientation and teach them how you want to practice and how you want to prepare without introducing them to a team period or a 7 on 7 period.
Q: You will have them back on the field tomorrow?
A: Yes.
Q: Similar to today’s workout?
A: Similar.
Q: What will you be doing with them Sunday?
A: Sunday will be instruction day.
Q: Is that a full day?
A: We will keep them busy.
Q: Meetings mostly?
A: Meetings and instructional activities.
Q: Instructional activities?
A: Yeah, our strength and conditioning staff will have a full day with them to instruct.
Q: Do you have thoughts on family members becoming personalities on social media?
A: My message to anyone on social media is to think twice and hit send once, and I think that is a good place to start.
Q: Does that extend to players’ family members?
A: Yeah, anyone who wraps their arms around our players, that is important, too.
