I mentioned Brandon London earlier. When I met him, I told him I worked for Newsday.
"Oh yeah, Newsday," he said. "I heard you guys had a nice picture of me."
While I had nothing to do with that, I can direct you to our always updated photo album that includes some new shots from yesterday and will undoubtedly have shots up from today pretty soon. Enjoy.
Just finished the lone practice for today and I was surprised by how nice the weather was. I guess those NFL officials were correct. By the time we left the field, it was downright warm and sunny.
A pretty intense practice with a lot of 11-on-11 action. At one point they went 32 straight 11-on-11 plays. That means a lot of transcribing notes for me. The big hit of practice came from Zak DeOssie, who stepped up and clobbered Danny Ware *** with a blanketing thud on a run up the middle. It may have been the hit of camp so far. Phillips has put some licks on people, but this one was pretty good.
*** (UPDATE: After conferring with assorted others we 've come to the conclusion that it was Harris and not Ware who was on the receiving end of the DeOssie hit. I'll try to ask the parties involved about it tomorrow. In the meantime, I changed it from Ware to Harris in the 11-on-11 chart below.)
The most exciting play was a bomb down the right sideline to Steve Smith (a somewhat healthy Steve Smith), who went up and made the catch. Problem was, so did Corey Webster. The two fell to the ground and continued rasslin' for the ball. I wouldn't have known which way to call it. Lucky for me, NFL field judge Eddy Powers was right there and made the call: First down, offense.
Kenny Phillips got some reps with the starting team. It's not a permanent promotion, though, because on the next series Michael Johnson was back in. Phillips did make an immediate impact with the ones, though. The first play was a throw down the middle from Manning to Hixon that Phillips knocked away and into the hands of Butler for an INT.
Smith and Tuck practiced, as they said they would. Mario Manningham did not. Adam Koets returned to practice from his dizziness, but Shane Olivea kept that RT position with the second unit. Koets played some LT.
And as for Bradshaw, Tom Coughlin said he wasn't aware that the RB would need to serve another 30 days in jail following this football season, as was reported by a Virginia paper (see a few posts below). He did say that Bradshaw's attitude has been stellar in camp and he hasn't noticed anything resembling a distraction.
Finally, there were a few cascades of Boos at practice this evening. Why? Some fans decided to come to the workout dressed in enemy uniforms. One dude had an old, worn out Deion Sanders Cowboys jersey with the numbers and the star faded. Another had a Chad Pennington jersey. "Trade it in for a Favre jersey" someone yelled at him. I didn't think Carton was bringing his Get Brett rally up here today.
Continue reading "Lots of hitting, lots of 11s, lots of 21" »
Who's Linky? That's what the players call Plaxico Burress. I'll stick to Plax.
Anyway, was talking with Brandon London this afternoon and he was gushing about Plax and his involvement with the team -- especially the receivers -- during this time when he's unable to practice. It turns out there are times when Plax practically runs the meetings. The coaches will give him the video clicker that lets him move the film back and forth and he'll break down the 1-on-1 drills and tell the receivers where they can improve their release or their route of their hand placement.
London also said he had the Giants staff burn him a DVD of Plaxico getting off the line against Al Harris in the NFC Championship Game so he could work on that aspect of his own game during the offseason. He said he spent many hours on the lawn in front of his apartment mimicking those moves against imaginary defensive backs. The neighbors probably thought he was nuts, London admitted, but it's paying off and he's having a very strong camp.
They both said they expect to go this afternoon. Steve Smith has missed the last few practices with a sore groin and Tuck sat out last night with some soreness in his foot.
Practice starts in a little while. It's raining, but one of the NFL officials here said it was supposed to stop around 2:30. That's fine by me.
That's the biggest change in the rules this year. We just met with NFL referee Walt Coleman and some members of his crew (including line judge Carl Johnson who worked Super Bowl XLII) and had a nice chat about the rules and the mindset of officials.
Among the rules changes:
No force out rule. A player must get both feet or another part of their body down in bounds to record a catch. You'd think that it's something that comes up often, but Johnson said that in eight years he's only had one force out call.
No 5-yard facemasks. From now on, those inadvertant facemask plays will not be called. There is still a 15-yard penalty for grabbing and twisting the facemask.
Option to defer. When a team wins the coin toss at the start of the game, it will have the option to defer until the second half.
Also of note is the use of sideline-to-helmet radios on defense. Those helmets with the radios will have red dots, by the way (green for go on offense, red for stop on defense) and only one player is allowed on the field with the radio. What happens when that player comes off the field? The second designated player must report to the officials of face a 5-yard illegal substitution penalty. Normally, that second player will have a helmet without a radio. The second red-sticker helmet will be kept in a box on the sideline with NFL personnel guarding the box. Seriously.
By the way, the new rule also affects the offense. Now, when a backup QB comes into the game with a green sticker on his helmet, he must report to the referee. So imagine that, the starting QB gets hurt and the backup has to grab his helmet, run onto the field, settle the huddle, get the play called ... and report to the ref. Coleman said there won't be a problem with players forgetting that, though. Why? Because Coleman said he'll remember and before the snap will approach the backup QB and say "You're reporting to me, right?" He called that preventative officiating.
Coleman also said he's in favor of using instant replay in baseball. He said he doesn't understand why people would be averse to getting a call right.
The Bristol Herald Courier has a report on Ahmad Bradshaw in which it cites two sources as saying that the Giants running back received preferential treatment while spending a month of his summer vacation in jail. Big deal. But here's the line that got me to raise my eyebrows:
"Bradshaw left the Abingdon jail on July 13 after 28 days. The corrections officer source said Bradshaw is supposed to return after football season to serve a second 30-day sentence for the probation violation."
That's the first I'm hearing of it. Guess I'll have to make a few phone calls.
By the way, it's in Bristol, Virginia, not the more well-known Bristol, Connecticut, from which eminates many more breaking news stories.
Then newsday.com is the place for you!
OK, enough of sounding like a carnival barker. Let me just tell you about the live chats we have scheduled for football fans. First, today at 3 p.m., Glauber takes all of your questions on the NFL. Apparently there's this thing with this quarterback in Green Bay. I don't know all of the details. Maybe someone can ask Bob about it. Here's the link to his chat, which is being done from Eagles camp.
Then, on Tuesday, we'll have our suddenly regular chat on the Giants right here in this space at 2 p.m. I know there were a lot of questions that went unanswered last time. Here's a hint: get there early and post the questions as soon as you can so the moderator has a chance to read it and post it. We'll try to have the board set up a half hour ahead of time for you. That chat will be right here in this space.
But before we talk Giants, you can talk Jets. I seem to have some fuzzy memories of that team. Erik Boland is having a live chat on his blog at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
By the way, the preseason opener is a week from today. Let me say that again ... a week from today.
Still lots to talk about.
I mean, it's the officials. As in the refs and line judges and back judges and assorted others who will meet with the media this afternoon to enlighten us on new rules, areas of enforcement, and, more than likely, Tim Donaghy. They'll be here at 1 p.m. and there's even a TV set up in the press room for them to give us a video presentation.
I already posted the link to the David Carr story, so here's the link to the other story that ran in today's paper, a notebook on Craig "Don't Call Me Dave" Dahl. Enjoy.
Long shot Dahl again beats odds and makes Giants
Practice today is at 2:40 and Coughlin speaks after that, so I probably won't have a report up until, oh, dinner time or so. Unless, of course, Plaxico practices today. That I would tell you as soon as I found out.
My story for tomorrow's newspaper is already up today. Imagine if I was covering the Olympics in China, where today really is yesterday and tomorrow is today. I wonder if the Internet knows what I'll be writing for the Friday paper. I think I just crossed the International Date Line of sanity.
Anyway, click below to get a first glimpse:
After tough career, Carr aims to be Giants backup
A few things that got cut from the story for space were quotes from Derrick Ward, who was a teammate of Carr's at Fresno State in 1998. Ward said that Carr, who is listed at 216, played at around 230 in college and that he hardly recognized him when they first saw each other with the Giants.
Ward also defended Carr's career, saying that it was an impossible situation he was put in when drafted by the Texans.
"It wasn’t really fair for everybody to downcast him," Ward said. "Anybody would be in that predicament unless you’re God."
Ward also said there are a lot of guys on the team with questions about Carr and his resume (Carr said he would have questions about someone like himself and he figured there would be a buzz about him). He also said it's no big thing that Carr is basically using the Giants to kick-start his stalled career.
"He's here, he knows his position," Ward said. "Hopefully he can learn from us. We just came off a Super Bowl win and have pretty much the whole offense back. He’ll take a seat and see how it’s done. If he gets his opportunity, I think he’ll do OK."
There are 27 practices scheduled for Albany. This evening we had practice number 9. We're zipping right along.
The big news was Justin Tuck, who missed the session with a sore foot, although he's expected to return to action tomorrow. Also sitting out were Danny Clark who is on a once-a-day program, along with Mario Manningham and Steve Smith. Jay Alford, who I'm told missed this morning's session, was playing tonight. And I didn't see Adam Koets.
Some fun stuff from the practice. You can click below for the 11-on-11s, but let's start with the 1-on-1s. Hixon started the drill with a great jumping catch on a fade pass from Manning, soaring over Aaron Ross. Dockery made a nice play to bat away a fade to Moss. Matthews made a nice catch on a fade over Sammy Knight. And then Hixon beat Ross again, this time diving in the corner of the end zone. I know he got in because there were officials at tonight's practice and the guy back there shot his hands up. On the last play of the drill, Kevin Boss made his first clunker of camp, dropping a pass from Woodson after he had a two step lead on Butler.
Speaking of the officials, one of them gave Webster some advice while he was covering Hixon. "Come on, 23, let go of that jersey!" warned field judge Eddy Powers. The ball wasn't even thrown in that direction, Hixon was just running a long pattern.
In 7-on-7s, Geoffrey Pope nearly had an interception after he stepped in front of D.J. Hall. Moss, who had some bad plays (we'll get to them), made a nice grab on a slant from Wright. Danny Ware, who had been showing good hands out of the backfield, dropped a short screen from Carr. And Carr hit Jennings on a crossing pattern, but Ross was there to strip the ball from Jennings for the fumble. Bryan Kehl ended the drill with an interception, stepping front of Thorpe to pick Woodson.
Now, finally, the 11s. And Moss. He was very open behind Pope on a long pattern down the right side and Wright threw him a bomb. Pope jumped in the air and tried to make a play, but the ball was just over his hands. He was close enough, though, to make Moss think he would hit it because the ball looked like it bounced right off of Moss' hands, as if he were anticipating a deflection or was distracted by the DB. Moss did come back with the nice catch in 7s, though, and in 11s caught a 55-yard bomb from Woodson over the shoulder with Pope trailing in coverage.
Brandon London had a really nice day, catching a lot of th eballs thrown his way. I guess he's not gun-shy after getting splattered by Kenny Phillips the other day. And just a note that Shaun O'Hara made a nice block on Osi Umenyiora. Big deal? How about that it was 30 yards down the field on a short screen pass from Manning to Bradshaw. Good hustle by both players.
Lawrence Tynes is no longer perfect. The kicker missed his first FG of camp, a 45-yard attempt that went wide left. He followed that with another miss wide left, this time from 31 yards (though the snap looked a little high). Finally he connected from 36 to end the drill. In camp he is 20-for-22 and hit 19 straight before the miss.
And Carr, for all we've moaned, looked pretty good this evening. If he starts to get healthy and get his feet under him, it will be an interesting battle between him and Wright.
No earthquakes.
Not every NFC East training camp can say as much.
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