Head Coach Brian Daboll
May 13, 2022
COACH DABOLL: Good to be out here with these guys. They got in last night. Had some meetings today with them. Really going to be kind of a short practice, if you will, a little bit over an hour.
Have some more meetings. Very similar in terms of scheduling tomorrow. It's good to get with these guys and start working with them and see what some of the stuff they can do in the classroom. Really, more importantly, and just ease them into things outside on the field.
Q. Are these two days really nothing more than to get them acclimated to being a Giant and to understand the program?
COACH DABOLL: I think that's right on. That's what I told them yesterday; it’s for you to get to know us, us to get to know you. There's only a couple days we'll do stuff on the field. There's a long way to go, as they can see.
We're not going to overdo it in terms of the installation and give them a ton of things to learn. I think it's really important, particularly the trial guys, to minimize the package, not motion and shift and do all these crazy things, and just see who can perform out there. And maybe we find a couple guys in terms of the tryout guys. Look, these guys have probably not been doing a whole lot of true football work, so we'll ease them into things.
Q. You've seen some coaches not really practice their draft picks at all in rookie minicamp. What's your approach to that?
COACH DABOLL: We'll practice ours. We'll have an hour, hour and ten minutes. Almost half of it will be some type of walk-through. We'll do some individual drills. We'll get about 15, 20 minutes of individual stuff. We have seven-on-seven period and we'll do 14 plays of that today. That's it. We don't have a huge -- about an hour, over an hour.
Q. Doing anything on Sunday?
COACH DABOLL: They'll be in here Sunday. We won't be doing anything on the field.
Q. You moved on from James Bradberry earlier this week. How do you feel about the cornerback room now that you moved on? Bradberry has been the number one corner for the last two years?
COACH DABOLL: We have a lot of guys in today and rookie camp and tryout stuff. We had guys here yesterday, really all camp, Phase II. Guys working hard. Good group. Take it day by day.
Q. Do you expect to add a veteran corner?
COACH DABOLL: We'll see. Worry about rookie camp today. Good question, though.
Q. Would you like to add a veteran? You have a pretty young group back there.
COACH DABOLL: We'll work with the guys we have. We're going to try to add and at times replace guys if other guys are better. Really a day-to-day process.
Q. You guys had a chance to get the bye after the London game if you wanted, that was after week five. Is that just too early for you?
COACH DABOLL: Where we have it right now, which is after the Seattle game, which is another long trip, we just kind of pushed it back a little bit.
Q. The on-field stuff being what it is. How tough is it for a tryout guy to showcase what he can do in this short period of time to make the roster?
COACH DABOLL: I think can you see stuff in terms of the individual drills that you need to see, whether it’s change of direction, quickness, it's a little harder probably for the bigger guys.
But this is something we've done for quite a bit. If there's a guy out there that stands out, we'll find them.
Q. What have you seen from Aaron Robinson watching tape of him, and do you think he could play outside cornerback on a consistent basis?
COACH DABOLL: All I can go by with what we've done out here this past month, which is no pads and things like that, but Aaron's been doing a really good job picking up the system, does a good job in drills, excited to work with him.
Q. Do you think he could be an outside corner?
COACH DABOLL: Yeah, we'll see. Yup.
Q. What have you learned about Kayvon Thibodeaux maybe that you didn't know before this whole process started here?
COACH DABOLL: It's just been good to get to know him. You have so many different meetings. You meet at the combine. Comes up here. You meet with him. He's a good, young man. Got a lot of energy. Even out there, we had a walk through a little while ago, he brings a little bit of juice. Good sense of humor. I appreciate him.
Q. It was said to be a pretty deep middle tight end class in the middle rounds. What was it about Daniel Bellinger that made him your guy in the scouting process, what did you like about him off field, on field?
COACH DABOLL: I think he has good size. He had good speed. He had ood hands. Did some good things at the line of scrimmage. Thought he had some tools to work with. Obviously liked him when we selected him there. Done a good job here for the short time I've been around him. Good young man.
Q. What have you learned about Daniel Jones as a leader over the past couple of months?
COACH DABOLL: He’s been great to work with. He has picked up things well. I think the guys respect him because he's picking it up well. He does a good job in the huddle. He does a good job in the classroom. Just a guy that wants to be really good, and he's trying everything he can to be the best he can.
Q. What do you see as the biggest learning curve when it comes to the transition from college to the pros?
COACH DABOLL: Good question. There's a lot. Just having that one year in college. You don't have as much time in the meeting room. Obviously need to install a lot less. We went through a couple of cadences today just on the offensive side. They’re used to claps, not many cadences. We put in two -- we put in three. Cut it back down to two because it took a little while just to get these two cadences. That's just the start of it. Formations, how you signal into the sideline. There's so many different things.
It's just a different way. There's so much fast pace in college where you’re getting signals on the sideline or you are using boards versus huddle and longer play calls and things like that.
We try to minimize that a little bit, but it's still hard on these guys.
Q. The last time we talked to you, you hadn't signed the UDFAs yet. What about Yusuf Corker? It seemed like he was a guy people thought was going to get drafted fifth, sixth round. You got him as an undrafted free agent?
COACH DABOLL: I think that happens every year, where this guy should’ve got drafted in the fourth or seventh or sixth, he’s a free agent or this guy should have you be a seventh, and he was a second-round pick. We'll see. He's a good kid. I think he's got a good skillset. Put him back there, see how he does.
Q. The fullback position has obviously been pushed aside a lot in the league, but you're one of the guys that really still appreciates it. Why do you care about the fullback position so much and why is it so important to your offense?
COACH DABOLL: We have a few guys out here to take a look at relative to that. Again, I think it's just another tool in your offense to see how teams are going to play you, whether they want to stay in a sub personnel package, a base personnel package. Does it simplify them, does it complicate them? To have many different personnels offensively to put stress on the defense, if those people are good enough to put out there, I think it is important.
Q. Last time we talked to you, Kadarius Toney showed up for voluntary workouts?
COACH DABOLL: He showed up for all of them.
Q. He's been at all of them?
COACH DABOLL: Since we last talked.
Q. Thanks for clarifying that. He was able to get his playbook, right? How good has it been to see him in and get him incorporated and what have you learned about him in person?
COACH DABOLL: I told you I had a really good conversations with KT before. I really like him. He's smart. Again, you're not really -- you're doing things. A lot of them on air and stuff like that. But you can tell he's got instinctive football. He was a really good (high school) quarterback down in Alabama. He's been a pleasure to be around. Good teammate. Smart. It's been great.
Q. A lot of things physically kind of derailed his season last year. How does he look to you in that regard?
COACH DABOLL: Every season is a new season. It was one season, I wasn't here in terms of him being a rookie. He's doing everything we're asking him to do. Glad he's here. We've had everybody here, so it's been a good few weeks.
Q. Did you like the way he came in? Did you notice that he was putting in the work in the offseason as well?
COACH DABOLL: Yeah. That's tough to do. They all come in and they start the offseason program. All these guys are pros. They take care of their bodies in the offseason. You’ve got to pick up a new system and learn some different things, what we're doing in the weight room. He's been just like all the other guys. He's been really good.
Q. Jordan Akins, the veteran tight end, what did you see in him? What does he bring?
COACH DABOLL: Bisch, (tight ends coach) Andy Bischoff, had some experience with him. He’s done a good job. He’s trying to pick it up as quick as he can. We're moving at a fast pace with the veterans. He's done a good job since he's been here. Still got a long way to go but good addition.
