NFL-Giants: NY Giants football news

This article talks a lot about Zac DeOssie’s mom – she sounds like a wonderful lady but let’s hope that Zac doesn’t become a pediatrician for a long long time…

Speaking of doctors, I am home and getting better. I’m not supposed to work out for 2 weeks and right now I have trouble finding a comfortable position to sit or lie down, but I’m getting better.

The Giants have traded for PK Lawrence Tynes, who they got from the chiefs for a conditional pick (7th rounder or 6th rounder depending on performance).

They have released PK Marc Hickok.

Over three seasons, Tynes was 68 for 87 (78.2 percent) on field goal attempts (6 for 11 over 50) and 137-of-141 on extra point attempts. Tynes was also 6-of-11 on field goal attempts from 50 yards or more.

I’m not usre how his kickoffs or salary compare to Jay Feeley, who the Giants allowed to leave via free agency.

Newsday reports that the Chiefs wanted to give their 5th round pick the job so no longer need Tynes. Medlock is the kicker in KC, will Tynes be the kicker for the Giants?

I’m having surgery tomorrow on an infected sweat gland. Not too serious but because of the infection they can’t stitch me up after surgery and I’ll be in the hospital about three days. I may feel up to reading some Giants news and blogging on my new Macbook (hospital has wireless interent). But it may be a few days before you hear from me.

This article has some interesting quotes from David Diehl, but ultimately fails because it doesn’t mention Guy Whimper. It also doesn’t mention that Joe Staley (it doesmention Staley when it talks about poor draft grades the Giants got for not drafting him) probably won’t be a starter from Day 1 and certainly is no more a sure thign than Diehl. The chances of Staley outplaying Diehl this year or next are pretty close to zero. I wrote that before.

This article on Koets mentions Diehl briefly. It will be interesting to see if the Giants make room on the roster for Koets. If they intend to keep him they probably shoud considering how they lost Goddard to the Packers last year thanks to a stupid roster move. I can’t even remember which guy took his roster spot, but I remember he barely played and never helped.

We’ll start with an article on Kevin Boss, how he respects Shockey and has never played in front of more than 10,000 people.

Steve Smith is more polished than Boss and everyone else at the Giants rookie mini camp including Ross who is very good at washing cars. I used to detail cars too, so I guess we have that in common… Anyway, regarding Ross. Apparently he didn’t impress the reporters but Coughlin says he like what he sees. As long as he has potential to get better and wants to work hard (and why wouldn’t he when he has to compete with a gold medalist in his relationship) I think we can relax.

We have an interesting article on Steve Smith and how USC got him ready for the NFL. What we traditionalists hope he’s wrong about is this: “With the departure of Tiki , I’m sure we’ll be throwing the ball more,” he said. “We’ve got a great passing attack and I just want to be one of the weapons.”

If you’re like me, you hope we’ll throw the ball less than last year. If Jacobs and Droughns get 35 carries (20-25 for Jacobs, the rest for Droughns) per game I think the other team will go home sore and we have a better chance of winning than if we put the ball in the air 40 times a game.

We’ve got an interesting article on Kevin Boss that covers how basketball helps prepare an NFL TE and how his shoulder is not yet 100% but will be close by training camp. It also talks bout how he wants to find another trainer to supplement his work with Giants trainers. That struck me as odd – you’d think the Giants could help him 24 hours a day if he wanted but he has to go somewhere else. I guess it’s those crazy NFLPA rules about not making football players work too hard to earn their millions.

Then there are the Giants pass cathcers everyone has forgotten about. Will Tyree earn playing time after not doing much with the opportunity last year? Will Sinorice Moss do anything?

Rookie minicamp is kind fo weird because of the 50 players there we’ll probably see fewer than 10 on the team. But we’ve got articles on some of the guys who are locks to make the team like Kevin Boss and Jay Alford.

We don’t have any pictures of those guys, but there are some of Aaron Ross and some other players. We’ve got an explanation on why Aaron Ross missed two years of football at Texas (the people at the NCAA are a bunch of idiots). You can also find out how he did at his first practice (not so good).

Ahmad Bradshaw is no lock to make the team but he has a shot as the #3 running back plus he returns kicks and punts. He also needs to stay out of trouble, but is underage posession of alcohol and taking a PlayStation from an unlocked dorm room really trouble? I mean taking someone’s PlayStation makes you an ass but not a criminal…

Two other Giants who might not make the team are Josh Huston and Marc Hickock: “If they are not kicking worth a [darn] we’ll go get a veteran,” Giants general manager Jerry Reese said. “But right now, they are kicking pretty good.”

We’ve also got an intersesting article on the Giants defense and their new coordinator.

I think you have to have different running plays – we’re often complaining the Giants are too predictable. If they sometimes run Jacobs up the middle, sometimes rune the stretch, sometimes run off tackle, etc. it should be harder for opposing defenses to defend our offense.

Anyway, this article talks about Jacobs being the Giants main runner:

“I think this guy can [run the stretch], he’s faster, he’s faster than Tiki,” Gilbride said. “It was his ability to cut back that made Tiki special. That’s what I don’t know [with Jacobs]. But we’re definitely going to have those plays. At this point it still will be a core play, a base play, for us.

“Will it be as good a play? That remains to be seen.”

It’s pretty rare for the New York media to give us an article with real football talk (Xes and Os) but here’s one focusing on Barry Cofield and the Giants DT position:

Spagnuolo for the most part is importing the Eagles’ defensive style, which means there will be virtually interchangeable left and right defensive tackles and no classic nose tackle. Both players will line up across from the guards more so than directly across from the center and will be responsible for stopping the run as well as getting to the quarterback.

Cofield will no longer be playing a regular nose tackle position where the center and the guard double team the DT. While this should give him a chance to beat guards 1 on 1, it gives the center more options. The center can help block one of the Giants DTs or get to the second level more easily because there’s no one directly in his way (at least that’s my limited understanding).

Eli Manning is throwing and Arthur Staple talks about his favorite target. Steve Smith is not there yet.

John Branch quotes Plaxico saying that Shockey will probably show up in New York.

All the other newspapers have similar articles with similar quotes and commentary.