July 28, 2014 New York Giants Training Camp Report

New York Giants Training Camp – Photo by Connor Hughes

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JULY 28, 2014 NEW YORK GIANTS TRAINING CAMP REPORT…
The Giants’ GPS must have been off the chart.

Practicing for the second day in full pads, New York called it quits after roughly 70 minutes (the practice was supposed to go two hours). The team broke after Jay Bromley tackled Kendall Gaskins – much to coach Tom Coughlin’s displeasure – and headed inside for another “recovery stretch.” This was the second time in the last five days the Giants have ended practice after an hour.

While it may have been per GPS request, it also could have been to stop the dismal display of offense shown by Eli Manning and the boys. After yesterday’s promise, it was back to square one for Big Blue on Monday.

Below you will find the complete practice report. Be sure to recap all the live action as it happened.

Odell Beckham continues to sit out – © USA TODAY Sports Images

SETTING THE STAGE…
Trindon Holliday returned to practice, Odell Beckham and Xavier Grimble were both held out. Coughlin confirmed after practice that both were visiting the “doctors” for further examination on their injured hamstrings.

SPECIAL TEAMS…
Some interesting happenings with the Giants’ special teams, getting some full contact reps. Both the punt/punt return and kick/kick return units went through different variations of drills.

• And the legend of Devon Kennard writes another chapter. In a punt drill where the line’s goal was to get around their blockers and get to the punter, Kennard pancaked fellow rookie Dan Fox. The hit wasn’t the only for Kennard on the day. More on that later.

• With no Odell Beckham Jr. to field punts (but not run), David Wilson got some additional looks. He muffed one, but fielded the rest.

• On the kick return drill, when David Wilson cut up the field a coach was heard yelling, “High and tight!” I couldn’t make out the yeller, but it’s certainly something the team’s harping on with the former first-round pick.

• It was Brandon McManus‘ day to kick and the place kicker went 3-for-4. The ball left his foot very weirdly on his one miss. It could have been he slipped. Either way, that brings McManus’ miss total to one. Josh Brown has missed two since camp started last week.

INDIVIDUAL…
I stuck with the offense again today as the Giants were practicing on field three. It is difficult when the team ends up on the corner field as it’s a journey to wherever the other group goes. Tomorrow, I’ll keep an eye on the defense.

• The wide receivers, running backs, tight ends and wide receivers joined the quarterbacks to work through a drill similar to the gauntlet. The receiver would catch the ball on a curl, then run through three bags being swung by Peyton Hillis, John Conner and Henry Hynoski before running in the middle of two tackling dummies. Not too many drops. The one notable observation was Andre Williams continues to catch with his body.

• After splitting up, the wide receivers worked an interesting “read-and-react” drill. The wideouts needed to read their positional coach before breaking on a number of different routes. No player made any notable mistakes that I saw.

TWO-MINUTE DRILL…
I am still not totally sure if this is the two-minute drill, or the pace the Giants’ offense now moves. Either way, it wasn’t pretty. The Giants ran the full-team 11-on-11 both after individuals, and at the end of practice. Not too many highlights from either time so we’ll condense them in one place.

• Eli Manning seemed to be quite interested in going deep to Rueben Randle. The quarterback threw his way three times, all three incomplete. The first came on a play-action fake on the first play of the two-minute drill. Zack Bowman made an impressive interception that Giants.com caught on film. The second pass Manning thrown Randle’s way was overthrown and the third probably should have been caught.

TOP PLAY ALERT: CB Zack Bowman makes a leaping interception at #GiantsCamp http://t.co/IVxYjo5XNa

— New York Giants (@Giants) July 28, 2014

• The more the Giants display their offense, the more it becomes evident offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo loves the quick passes. Be it bubble screens, slants or outs, the ball certainly comes out of Manning’s hand faster.

• Ryan Nassib didn’t have a very good practice, but he did make a beautiful pass to Preston Parker on the sideline. Parker made a spinning back-shoulder grab before toe-tapping his feet. He’s another young receiver who has flashed this summer.

• Eli Manning hit Daniel Fells for a touchdown between a couple of defenders near the goal line. In an overall bad performance by the offense, there were a few good signs from the tight end position. Larry Donnell made the “Catch of Practice” in the second 11-on-11 portion.

TOP PLAY ALERT: TE Larry Donnell make acrobatic catch #GiantsCamp http://t.co/7hfRp04I01

— New York Giants (@Giants) July 28, 2014

• First fight of camp. Henry Hynoski and Jameel McClain went at it. The entire team came together in an attempt to break it up.

• The Giants displayed their new “NASCAR” package for a couple of plays. Robert Ayers Jr. and Damontre Moore played the end positions why Jason Pierre-Paul and Mathias Kiwanuka held down the fort at defensive tackle.

• Ryan Nassib’s struggles continued. Aside from struggling with accuracy, he tried to one-hand a high snap from Weston Richburg, missed and fumbled the ball.

• One other player who stood out a bit was Mario Manningham. He made a nice sliding back-shoulder grab on the sideline and another on a comeback route. He said he’s feeling “better and better” each day, now he’s showing it.

• Charles Brown gave William Beatty a little break in the second 11-on-11. On his first snap, Brown jumped offsides.

• Victor Cruz made an impressive grab on a wheel-ish route down the left sideline. Eli Manning hit him with a pass, perfectly beating the zone.

SEVEN-ON-SEVEN…
The Giants kicked the linemen to the side and went at it a bit in a seven-on-seven. Not too many highlights to take note of here. As has been mentioned, it wasn’t the offense’s best day.

Victor Cruz – © USA TODAY Sports Images

• Andre Williams continues to try to catch everything with his body. The issue with this is if the pass comes in hot, it can potentially bounce off of the chest portion of the shoulder pads and result in an incompletion or worse. This happened today on an attempted screen. Williams has a lot of potential, but his receiving game is a work in progress.

• Curtis Painter is starting to get a bit more looks at quarterback than he had in the first week. My guess is it’s to try to light a fire under Ryan Nassib – anything to get the quarterback going at this point is in play.

RUNNING DRILL…
After missing the Devon Kennard hit on David Wilson yesterday, I made sure to take note of what happened in this drill today. Essentially the safeties, defensive line and linebackers join with the offensive line, tight ends, fullback and running backs for a full-contact running drill. Think the reverse of the seven-on-seven.

• Markus Kuhn is a very, very violent man. He continues to impress with his pure strength and the thing that’s gotten my attention is the nastiness he plays with. Every time he knocks someone over, he stares at them as they help themselves up.

• Both fullbacks, John Conner and Henry Hynoski, looked good. Few stand-up blocks from both of them.

• Another Devon Kennard sighting. On the first play of this drill, the rookie from USC came bolting in between the A/B gap and smacked Rashad Jennings. Right after making contact, Kennard clenched his fists together and let out a few bellows.

• Johnathan Hankins put a pretty good shot on David Wilson, knocking him over. Wilson then popped right back up and continued running down the field.

The Giants will hold another practice open to the public tomorrow (1:20-3:30pm) before having the day of Wednesday. Stay tuned to BigBlueInteractive.com for your complete camp coverage.