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ALBANY, N.Y. -- Here are six observations on the New York Giants, gleaned from the training camp practices of Aug. 13-14:
1. Despite leading the Giants to an 11-5 record and their first division title since 2000, quarterback Eli Manning at times struggled with his accuracy in his first season as the starter, completing 52.8 percent of his attempts. That was the third lowest completion rate in the league among quarterbacks who started at least 10 games. And some of Manning's stirring fourth-quarter comebacks in 2005 came at the end of games in which he wasn't particularly on-target for the first three quarters. Manning is aware he has to continue to improve in 2006. "We have a lot of weapons," Manning said. "A lot. And it's up to me to get them the ball."
The coaches have worked to improve Manning's decision-making because they feel it is the root of some of his mechanical breakdowns. Coach Tom Coughlin pointed out a year ago, when ESPN.com visited training camp, that Manning is fundamentally sound in the technical side of throwing the ball. He has good footwork, shoulder and hip rotation and overall arm strength. But occasionally tardy decision-making, and hesitation in pulling the trigger, contributed more than anything to Manning's faulty marksmanship. Coughlin said Monday that his third-year quarterback has improved markedly in his decisions and that not surprisingly, it's enhanced his accuracy.
For the most part, that appeared to be the case in the two practices we observed. In the Sunday afternoon workout though, Manning overthrew a few deep balls one would have expected him to hit, and a couple times threw into coverage along the sideline. Regular observers suggested it might have been his worst practice of camp. He certainly made up for it on Monday with a solid performance.
There is no doubt that Manning has the right stuff. And if he is consistently on his game, this figures to be a very explosive offense.
2.
Last year, general manager Ernie Accorsi addressed the Giants' previously telling lack of depth on the offensive line by bringing in a handful of veteran free agents, and it paid off nicely when graybeards such as tackle Bob Whitfield were able to plug some late-season gaps that resulted from injuries on the unit.
This offseason it appears that Accorsi's area of focus was the secondary, a unit that lost a pair of starters, free safety Brent Alexander (retirement) and former first-round cornerback Will Allen (free agency), in the spring. Accorsi reacted to the losses by signing seven defensive backs of varying NFL tenures. Time will tell if the wholesale approach works as well in the secondary for 2006 as it did on the offensive line last season. The three headliners of the group are free safety Will Demps, four-time Pro Bowl cornerback Sam Madison and veteran nickel corner R.W. McQuarters. All three are scheduled to start at their respective positions. Guys such as Jason Bell, Vontez Duff, Quentin Harris (a savvy "sub" defender with good instincts) and Jason Shivers could all add depth.
So far though, the results are a bit uneven. Madison, who was released by the Miami Dolphins because they felt he was in decline and too pricey at this juncture of his career, has been spotty and hasn't shown the good hands he's exhibited during most of his 10-year tenure in the league. Demps, a starter in the Baltimore secondary in the past, still is recovering from the knee injury he suffered last December and is practicing only once a day. It won't be altogether surprising if second-year veteran James Butler, a steal as an undrafted college free agent in 2005, pushes Demps for playing time. Butler is big and physical and just has a knack for getting around the ball.
The two guys who will have to help hold the unit together are second-year cornerback Corey Webster, who is a first-year starter, and underrated strong safety Gibril Wilson. A second-round pick in 2005, and a corner whose all-around tools are better than his stopwatch speed, Webster has enjoyed a solid camp. Like a lot of the New York defensive backs, he doesn't catch the ball well enough yet, and too many potential Webster interceptions are instead recorded as passes defensed, but the former LSU standout looks like a good player.
It's Wilson though, who might be more integral to the overall performance of the secondary than most people realize. Not many outsiders know much about Wilson, but he's a terrific all-around safety. He can move into "the box" versus the run, blitzes well and is beginning to make progress in coverage. Two years ago, when Wilson was injured in his rookie season, his absence impacted the Giants' defense. Wilson isn't a pure ballhawk, but he is one of those guys who does a lot of little things well and likes the diversity he is afforded in the New York scheme. "I love to watch [Pittsburgh's Troy] Polamalu and Ed Reed [of the Ravens], because they're the best at their craft," Wilson said after Monday morning's practice. "I don't put myself in their class yet, but, if people just think of me as being a solid player, one who contributes in a lot of ways, that's fine by me."
Here is the kind of well-rounded skill set that Wilson possesses: The former University of Tennessee standout has even more sacks (six) than interceptions (five) in his two league seasons. It appears that in 2006, Wilson, regarded mostly as a half-field defender in the past, will get to play more man-to-man coverage, an addition he conceded is a challenge. Wilson didn't have a particularly good game working against Baltimore tight end Todd Heap in last weekend's preseason opener, but he'll get better in single-coverage situations the more he plays them. He'll also be counted on to pull together all of the new pieces in the secondary and get everyone aligned in the right spots. He credits the retired Alexander for mentoring him in that area last year. Keep his name in mind, because Wilson is a good, scrappy player, and the Giants can ill afford to be without his stabilizing influence in a dramatically revamped secondary.
3.
Who would have thought the defection of one journeyman defensive tackle, a guy who had started just four regular-season games before joining the Giants in 2005, would have such an impact? But the loss this spring of Kendrick Clancy, who signed a four-year deal with Arizona after Giants officials hinted he reneged on a verbal agreement with them, has definitely affected the team's interior run defense.
Coughlin termed the defense "soft" after last weekend's preseason opener at Baltimore, and he has been shuffling tackles since then in an effort to identify his best combination. The starters in the opener were William Joseph, who played much better in 2005 than he had previously, and Fred Robbins. But it could be a while yet until anyone can actually write the starting tackles' names in pen on the depth chart.
In addition to Joseph and Robbins, the possibilities include mostly untested youngsters such as Damane Duckett, Jonas Seawright and Barry Cofield. All of them, it seemed, were rotating into the first unit over the last few days. And the Giants' coaches feel that all of them, eventually, can be NFL-caliber players. But they need to show marked improvement soon. A fourth-round pick in this year's draft, Cofield is the rawest of the group but might have the most potential. New York has a terrific middle linebacker in Antonio Pierce, but the tackles in front of him have to get a lot stouter. New York needs someone to emerge as a legitimate run-stuffer in the preseason.
4. There are no such problems at end, where the Giants possess not only one of the best starting tandems in the league, but one of the deepest groups, period. Starters Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora combined for 26 sacks in 2005 and both went to the Pro Bowl. There's no reason the two, who might comprise the lightest end duet in the league, can't repeat that level of success.
But coaches would like to see two youngsters, second-year veteran Justin Tuck and 2006 first-round draft choice Mathias Kiwanuka, get on the field as well. That's why the Giants are experimenting with a nickel rush that features all four ends.
The final player chosen in the first round, after Accorsi traded down in the stanza, Kiwanuka looks like the real deal. He registered 1½ sacks in the preseason opener and enjoyed a three-play stretch on one series in which he wreaked havoc on the Baltimore offensive line. The leading sacker in Boston College history, with 37½, Kiwanuka is, like the other New York ends, a little light in the rear end. In fact, he's cut high, a long, lean rusher with an explosive first step. Almost as notable as his quickness, however, are Kiwanuka's long arms and natural leverage that make him difficult to block. In some packages, the Giants align Kiwanuka as a linebacker, occasionally even in the middle of the defense. Surprisingly, he did not appear awkward in space, and his long wingspan means he takes up considerable space in the short, hook zones that he is being asked to cover.
For some reason, perhaps disappointing 40-yard times, Kiwanuka's stock dropped in the weeks leading up to the draft. Based on the early returns, the Giants are going to be happy that they provided him a safety net. If New York can figure out a way to stop the run on first and second downs, the Giants figure to have a hellacious pass rush.
5. What to make of the Giants' highest-profile veteran acquisition of the offseason, former Washington linebacker LaVar Arrington, a three-time Pro Bowl performer whose knee problems limited him to just 17 appearances the past two seasons? It might be too early to tell with Arrington, who needs to play and play well to earn much of the money in the incentive-laden contract he signed with the Giants this spring. The seventh-year veteran has missed practice time and the Giants are erring on the side of caution for now with his knees. He is slated to start on the strong side, as coordinator Tim Lewis wants him closer to the ball, and that will mean some adjustments since Arrington played a lot of weakside linebacker for the Commanders.
One thing people forget about Arrington, probably because he hasn't played much lately, is just how big and strong he is. Arrington still has some quickness, but watching him in practice Sunday afternoon, what's revealing is how physical he can be in stretches. Arrington can bull rush and knock tackles back on their heels with initial impact, and he looks incredibly strong through the hands, able to latch on to a blocker and move him around. Certainly he is a motivated player after having fallen out of favor in Washington, where he essentially bought his way out of his contract to become a free agent. But because he hasn't gotten a lot of work yet, the jury is still out on whether Arrington can return to his Pro Bowl form of the past.
6.
There are some intriguing battles in camp for key roles but because of an injury, one of them seems to have been settled already. When the Giants snatched the mercurial Sinorice Moss in the second round, a real steal at that point, especially since Accorsi had strongly considered taking him with New York's first pick, it was widely assumed he would claim the No. 3 wide receiver spot. But a strained quadriceps has kept Moss off the field and the No. 3 job behind Plaxico Burress and Amani Toomer looks, at least for now, like it belongs to star-crossed veteran Tim Carter, a sprinter whose promising career has been sidetracked by a series of injuries.
Carter is such a good kid and has been beset by such misfortune, you hate to even mention him much for fear of jinxing the fifth-year veteran. But he is healthy and making plays, authoring some tough catches, and could provide Manning a vertical dimension deep down the middle of the field.
It will be interesting to see who claims the No. 2 spot at quarterback behind Manning, and at tailback after Tiki Barber. It will be a mild upset, but not altogether shocking if Jared Lorenzen, the former 300-pound-plus quarterback, sneaks into the second spot on the depth chart. Lorenzen has a howitzer hanging from his right shoulder, moves a little better than you might expect (his weight is now listed at 275 pounds) and demonstrated good intangibles in rallying the Giants to a comeback win in the first preseason game.
New York signed veteran Rob Johnson, who hasn't played in the NFL since 2003 and has spent two years rehabilitating a surgically repaired right elbow, and he often looked on Sunday and Monday like a quarterback who has accumulated too much rust. Johnson concedes his once-overpowering arm strength isn't there anymore, but the ball fluttered even on some intermediate routes. Tim Hasselbeck is OK, but the Giants have been trying to upgrade over him for two years now.
The competition for the No. 2 tailback spot is critical, given that Barber is 31 now, and probably can't continue to shoulder such a workload. The job is probably Brandon Jacobs' to lose, but the second-year veteran, over whom we unabashedly gushed last summer in camp, runs too upright and doesn't generate the kind of power you expect from a back who is 6-feet-4 and 264 pounds. He's got to lower his pad level and start moving the pile. The coaches seem to like third-year veteran Derrick Ward, but he is sidelined by a broken foot. There isn't a lot behind Barber. The nine other backs on the roster have averaged just 18.9 rushing attempts for their careers. The only one with more than 40 carries in a season is Chad Morton, and the tiny return specialist doesn't really line up from scrimmage anymore and hasn't registered a carry since 2003.
Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com. To check out Len's chat archive, click here
.
1. Despite leading the Giants to an 11-5 record and their first division title since 2000, quarterback Eli Manning at times struggled with his accuracy in his first season as the starter, completing 52.8 percent of his attempts. That was the third lowest completion rate in the league among quarterbacks who started at least 10 games. And some of Manning's stirring fourth-quarter comebacks in 2005 came at the end of games in which he wasn't particularly on-target for the first three quarters. Manning is aware he has to continue to improve in 2006. "We have a lot of weapons," Manning said. "A lot. And it's up to me to get them the ball."
The coaches have worked to improve Manning's decision-making because they feel it is the root of some of his mechanical breakdowns. Coach Tom Coughlin pointed out a year ago, when ESPN.com visited training camp, that Manning is fundamentally sound in the technical side of throwing the ball. He has good footwork, shoulder and hip rotation and overall arm strength. But occasionally tardy decision-making, and hesitation in pulling the trigger, contributed more than anything to Manning's faulty marksmanship. Coughlin said Monday that his third-year quarterback has improved markedly in his decisions and that not surprisingly, it's enhanced his accuracy.
For the most part, that appeared to be the case in the two practices we observed. In the Sunday afternoon workout though, Manning overthrew a few deep balls one would have expected him to hit, and a couple times threw into coverage along the sideline. Regular observers suggested it might have been his worst practice of camp. He certainly made up for it on Monday with a solid performance.
There is no doubt that Manning has the right stuff. And if he is consistently on his game, this figures to be a very explosive offense.
2.
Last year, general manager Ernie Accorsi addressed the Giants' previously telling lack of depth on the offensive line by bringing in a handful of veteran free agents, and it paid off nicely when graybeards such as tackle Bob Whitfield were able to plug some late-season gaps that resulted from injuries on the unit.
This offseason it appears that Accorsi's area of focus was the secondary, a unit that lost a pair of starters, free safety Brent Alexander (retirement) and former first-round cornerback Will Allen (free agency), in the spring. Accorsi reacted to the losses by signing seven defensive backs of varying NFL tenures. Time will tell if the wholesale approach works as well in the secondary for 2006 as it did on the offensive line last season. The three headliners of the group are free safety Will Demps, four-time Pro Bowl cornerback Sam Madison and veteran nickel corner R.W. McQuarters. All three are scheduled to start at their respective positions. Guys such as Jason Bell, Vontez Duff, Quentin Harris (a savvy "sub" defender with good instincts) and Jason Shivers could all add depth.
So far though, the results are a bit uneven. Madison, who was released by the Miami Dolphins because they felt he was in decline and too pricey at this juncture of his career, has been spotty and hasn't shown the good hands he's exhibited during most of his 10-year tenure in the league. Demps, a starter in the Baltimore secondary in the past, still is recovering from the knee injury he suffered last December and is practicing only once a day. It won't be altogether surprising if second-year veteran James Butler, a steal as an undrafted college free agent in 2005, pushes Demps for playing time. Butler is big and physical and just has a knack for getting around the ball.
The two guys who will have to help hold the unit together are second-year cornerback Corey Webster, who is a first-year starter, and underrated strong safety Gibril Wilson. A second-round pick in 2005, and a corner whose all-around tools are better than his stopwatch speed, Webster has enjoyed a solid camp. Like a lot of the New York defensive backs, he doesn't catch the ball well enough yet, and too many potential Webster interceptions are instead recorded as passes defensed, but the former LSU standout looks like a good player.
It's Wilson though, who might be more integral to the overall performance of the secondary than most people realize. Not many outsiders know much about Wilson, but he's a terrific all-around safety. He can move into "the box" versus the run, blitzes well and is beginning to make progress in coverage. Two years ago, when Wilson was injured in his rookie season, his absence impacted the Giants' defense. Wilson isn't a pure ballhawk, but he is one of those guys who does a lot of little things well and likes the diversity he is afforded in the New York scheme. "I love to watch [Pittsburgh's Troy] Polamalu and Ed Reed [of the Ravens], because they're the best at their craft," Wilson said after Monday morning's practice. "I don't put myself in their class yet, but, if people just think of me as being a solid player, one who contributes in a lot of ways, that's fine by me."
Here is the kind of well-rounded skill set that Wilson possesses: The former University of Tennessee standout has even more sacks (six) than interceptions (five) in his two league seasons. It appears that in 2006, Wilson, regarded mostly as a half-field defender in the past, will get to play more man-to-man coverage, an addition he conceded is a challenge. Wilson didn't have a particularly good game working against Baltimore tight end Todd Heap in last weekend's preseason opener, but he'll get better in single-coverage situations the more he plays them. He'll also be counted on to pull together all of the new pieces in the secondary and get everyone aligned in the right spots. He credits the retired Alexander for mentoring him in that area last year. Keep his name in mind, because Wilson is a good, scrappy player, and the Giants can ill afford to be without his stabilizing influence in a dramatically revamped secondary.
3.
Who would have thought the defection of one journeyman defensive tackle, a guy who had started just four regular-season games before joining the Giants in 2005, would have such an impact? But the loss this spring of Kendrick Clancy, who signed a four-year deal with Arizona after Giants officials hinted he reneged on a verbal agreement with them, has definitely affected the team's interior run defense.
Coughlin termed the defense "soft" after last weekend's preseason opener at Baltimore, and he has been shuffling tackles since then in an effort to identify his best combination. The starters in the opener were William Joseph, who played much better in 2005 than he had previously, and Fred Robbins. But it could be a while yet until anyone can actually write the starting tackles' names in pen on the depth chart.
In addition to Joseph and Robbins, the possibilities include mostly untested youngsters such as Damane Duckett, Jonas Seawright and Barry Cofield. All of them, it seemed, were rotating into the first unit over the last few days. And the Giants' coaches feel that all of them, eventually, can be NFL-caliber players. But they need to show marked improvement soon. A fourth-round pick in this year's draft, Cofield is the rawest of the group but might have the most potential. New York has a terrific middle linebacker in Antonio Pierce, but the tackles in front of him have to get a lot stouter. New York needs someone to emerge as a legitimate run-stuffer in the preseason.
4. There are no such problems at end, where the Giants possess not only one of the best starting tandems in the league, but one of the deepest groups, period. Starters Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora combined for 26 sacks in 2005 and both went to the Pro Bowl. There's no reason the two, who might comprise the lightest end duet in the league, can't repeat that level of success.
But coaches would like to see two youngsters, second-year veteran Justin Tuck and 2006 first-round draft choice Mathias Kiwanuka, get on the field as well. That's why the Giants are experimenting with a nickel rush that features all four ends.
The final player chosen in the first round, after Accorsi traded down in the stanza, Kiwanuka looks like the real deal. He registered 1½ sacks in the preseason opener and enjoyed a three-play stretch on one series in which he wreaked havoc on the Baltimore offensive line. The leading sacker in Boston College history, with 37½, Kiwanuka is, like the other New York ends, a little light in the rear end. In fact, he's cut high, a long, lean rusher with an explosive first step. Almost as notable as his quickness, however, are Kiwanuka's long arms and natural leverage that make him difficult to block. In some packages, the Giants align Kiwanuka as a linebacker, occasionally even in the middle of the defense. Surprisingly, he did not appear awkward in space, and his long wingspan means he takes up considerable space in the short, hook zones that he is being asked to cover.
For some reason, perhaps disappointing 40-yard times, Kiwanuka's stock dropped in the weeks leading up to the draft. Based on the early returns, the Giants are going to be happy that they provided him a safety net. If New York can figure out a way to stop the run on first and second downs, the Giants figure to have a hellacious pass rush.
5. What to make of the Giants' highest-profile veteran acquisition of the offseason, former Washington linebacker LaVar Arrington, a three-time Pro Bowl performer whose knee problems limited him to just 17 appearances the past two seasons? It might be too early to tell with Arrington, who needs to play and play well to earn much of the money in the incentive-laden contract he signed with the Giants this spring. The seventh-year veteran has missed practice time and the Giants are erring on the side of caution for now with his knees. He is slated to start on the strong side, as coordinator Tim Lewis wants him closer to the ball, and that will mean some adjustments since Arrington played a lot of weakside linebacker for the Commanders.
One thing people forget about Arrington, probably because he hasn't played much lately, is just how big and strong he is. Arrington still has some quickness, but watching him in practice Sunday afternoon, what's revealing is how physical he can be in stretches. Arrington can bull rush and knock tackles back on their heels with initial impact, and he looks incredibly strong through the hands, able to latch on to a blocker and move him around. Certainly he is a motivated player after having fallen out of favor in Washington, where he essentially bought his way out of his contract to become a free agent. But because he hasn't gotten a lot of work yet, the jury is still out on whether Arrington can return to his Pro Bowl form of the past.
6.
There are some intriguing battles in camp for key roles but because of an injury, one of them seems to have been settled already. When the Giants snatched the mercurial Sinorice Moss in the second round, a real steal at that point, especially since Accorsi had strongly considered taking him with New York's first pick, it was widely assumed he would claim the No. 3 wide receiver spot. But a strained quadriceps has kept Moss off the field and the No. 3 job behind Plaxico Burress and Amani Toomer looks, at least for now, like it belongs to star-crossed veteran Tim Carter, a sprinter whose promising career has been sidetracked by a series of injuries.
Carter is such a good kid and has been beset by such misfortune, you hate to even mention him much for fear of jinxing the fifth-year veteran. But he is healthy and making plays, authoring some tough catches, and could provide Manning a vertical dimension deep down the middle of the field.
It will be interesting to see who claims the No. 2 spot at quarterback behind Manning, and at tailback after Tiki Barber. It will be a mild upset, but not altogether shocking if Jared Lorenzen, the former 300-pound-plus quarterback, sneaks into the second spot on the depth chart. Lorenzen has a howitzer hanging from his right shoulder, moves a little better than you might expect (his weight is now listed at 275 pounds) and demonstrated good intangibles in rallying the Giants to a comeback win in the first preseason game.
New York signed veteran Rob Johnson, who hasn't played in the NFL since 2003 and has spent two years rehabilitating a surgically repaired right elbow, and he often looked on Sunday and Monday like a quarterback who has accumulated too much rust. Johnson concedes his once-overpowering arm strength isn't there anymore, but the ball fluttered even on some intermediate routes. Tim Hasselbeck is OK, but the Giants have been trying to upgrade over him for two years now.
The competition for the No. 2 tailback spot is critical, given that Barber is 31 now, and probably can't continue to shoulder such a workload. The job is probably Brandon Jacobs' to lose, but the second-year veteran, over whom we unabashedly gushed last summer in camp, runs too upright and doesn't generate the kind of power you expect from a back who is 6-feet-4 and 264 pounds. He's got to lower his pad level and start moving the pile. The coaches seem to like third-year veteran Derrick Ward, but he is sidelined by a broken foot. There isn't a lot behind Barber. The nine other backs on the roster have averaged just 18.9 rushing attempts for their careers. The only one with more than 40 carries in a season is Chad Morton, and the tiny return specialist doesn't really line up from scrimmage anymore and hasn't registered a carry since 2003.
Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com. To check out Len's chat archive, click here
