This week, New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll began his second round of organized team activities (OTAs) with the team.
There’s a big difference in the air from this time last year when everything and almost everyone was new to one another and their surroundings.
The Giants entered Phase 3 of their offseason workout program this week and Daboll is comfortable with both the progress and the plan.
“We have been grinding away here into Phase 3 of the program. I think we made some strides physically with the strength and conditioning program, phase one and face two,” Daboll told reporters on Thursday.
“Really, it’s a learning camp, a teaching camp. That’s how we approach it. No one is going to make the team off of performance at this camp. There are certain rules and things that we with try to coach and make sure that our guys are on top of.”
The Giants have continued to tweak, build and turn over their roster in Year 2 of Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen’s tenure. There are new faces being added to the mix of last year’s returnees — a team that went to the NFC Divisional Playoffs.
There’s a learning curve for everyone and Daboll wants to make sure that curve isn’t as steep come training camp in late July.
“The biggest thing is taking it from the classroom to the field,” he said. “I would say they are behind considerably, which is the same every year I’ve been in the NFL, so our job as a coaching staff is to try to get them up to speed as quickly as we can. Lay a foundation for training camp so when we get to training camp which I think is in about two months, is today the 25th? Yeah about, two months.”
Just like last year, Daboll is staying upbeat and focusing on teaching and getting everyone on the same page.
“They have a lot to learn in a short amount of time and try to get them as prepared as we can, so in training camp they can go out there, and again, there’s players slow down when they are thinking a lot. When you are just learning a new system, maybe not playing as fast as you’d like to play because you’re thinking about a lot of different things, so just try to get them acclimated to our systems, our calls, to how we do things, but a long way away from training camp, actually,” he said.
“They will get reps, learn from those. There will be a lot of mistakes on everybody’s end, including mine, so try to get better so we can be ready to go for training camp.”
The workouts are voluntary for the moment. The mandatory minicamp in mid-June will be the finale of the offseason program. Then the team will break for six weeks or so. That is why Daboll wants to cram as much as he can into these sessions. He is enjoying his teaching moments, which never seem to end.
“I love every part of it,” he said. “But it’s great when you come out here and get an hour and a half of practice in and go back to the meeting rooms and teach them some of the things that — again, we make mistakes as coaches, too, so this is a great time of year. None of us have really been out here at practice for a while now. A lot of things we can get better at and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
So far, so good.
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