EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The New York Giants are less than a week away from their preseason opener against the New England Patriots in Foxborough. Training camp has taken on a much more uptempo tone with the impending game right around the corner for Brian Daboll and his crew.
Thursday’s game will be the first of three exhibition games that the Giants will play before the regular season begins next month. On Sunday, New York spent a large chunk of their practice working on red zone drills and conditioning.
Here are three takeaways from Sunday’s practice.
Daboll will get everyone in on Thursday
If they’re healthy they’re going to play on Thursday night at Gillette Stadium against the Patriots. Daboll revealed that he expects everyone to play in the preseason opener in Foxborough, but it was undetermined yet just how much playing time each and everyone would get.
This will be the second year that the NFL has shortened its preseason calendar from four games to three. When it comes to how Daboll planned to approach things this season as a first-year head coach, he said that it would come down to what is best for the players.
“I think it’s an individual basis with the players,” the Giants coach explained. “Some guys have played a lot of football. Some have played less. Everybody’s, in new systems here. With our system on offense, our system on defense, the kicking game is similar. But I think that’s important to play football: to have live reps. How many reps that’s going to be, I can’t tell you right now. I think it’s going to be less for some and more for others, and each game will have a plan going into it.
“I anticipate all of our guys playing on Thursday. I haven’t even talked about it with the players either. I think our focus is really on getting better.”
High Tempo Giants Practice
It was certainly easy to see the excitement level that the Giants have to finally get to play another team in a couple of days. The intensity was ratcheted up by just about everyone as they worked under the blistering sun. At one point lineman Justin Ellis dropped running back Saquon Barkley at the line of scrimmage with a hard tackle that sent both players to the ground.
“Today was basically like inside run for four periods,” Jon Feliciano said after practice. “As a lineman, and Saquon in the huddle is all fired up, we are all out there having fun for probably after the first period and then we started realizing what kind of day it was going to be and, at least for me, practice got easier the longer we went. Just because run plays for a lineman, we like putting our bodies on people.”
Barkley has another solid showing
On a day that the Giants focused on their work in the red zone, Barkley had another good day on the field. Just about everyone knows what’s at stake for the Giants running back this season and he is looking to return to his rookie form after several injury-plagued years.
For more New York Giants news, turn to AMNY.com
The 25-year-old has continued to look explosive out of the backfield this summer and that continued on Sunday. Barkley had a handful of touchdown runs during the work inside the 10-yard lines by finding the open lanes and bouncing off defenders. For the Giants, the continued success of Barkley through camp is certainly a welcomed sign for New York as camp continues.
