{"id":306530,"date":"2026-07-27T13:51:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T13:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/306530\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T13:51:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T13:51:13","slug":"5-things-i-think-on-the-eve-of-ny-giants-training-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/306530\/","title":{"rendered":"5 \u2018things I think\u2019 on the eve of NY Giants training camp"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York Giants players report for training camp on Tuesday, with practice starting on Wednesday. Here are some of the things I am thinking about as a new season of Giants football, the first with 18-year veteran head coach John Harbaugh at the wheel, dawns.<\/p>\n

The John Harbaugh \u201cThis is the New York Giants\u201d speech to his team on their first day together has drawn criticism<\/a>. I think that criticism is stupid and misguided.<\/p>\n

The Giants are one of the league\u2019s iconic original franchises. They have won eight championships \u2014 four Super Bowls and four titles in the pre-Super Bowl era.<\/p>\n

Harbaugh was reminding players of what the franchise has been, of the legacy they should embrace and strive to emulate. He wasn\u2019t simply blowing rah-rah smoke.<\/p>\n

Players and assistant coaches have all lauded Harbaugh\u2019s daily messages to the team. To take one small snippet, without hearing the rest of Harbaugh\u2019s message, and twist it into something \u201ccringey\u201d or to be made fun of is nonsense.<\/p>\n

I am extremely curious to see how much of a shock Harbaugh\u2019s training camp, which promises more physicality and less coddling than many NFL players have become accustomed to, is to the players. Media, too. It certainly promises to be interesting.<\/p>\n

Tight end Isaiah Likely was with Harbaugh for the past four years with the Baltimore Ravens. He says he has been \u201cinstitutionalized\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Coach Harbs, this is all I ever know,\u201d Likely said. \u201cWhatever he\u2019s doing at practice, I\u2019ve been doing it for the last four years in a row. So, whatever you all see out there is what you\u2019re going to get every time.\u201d<\/p>\n

We saw some indications of Harbaugh\u2019s ways in the spring. Draft picks took snaps during rookie mini-camp, something Giants\u2019 draft picks had not done in several years. Spring practices ran as long as the Collective Bargaining Agreement would allow. The Giants did 9-on-7 run drills without pads, an unusual sight. First- and second-team players took more reps than we have become accustomed to seeing.<\/p>\n

The West Virginia schedule is an indication things will be different. The Giants will practice for four days, take Sunday off, then practice six consecutive days. I can\u2019t remember the last time a Giants team did that. And I\u2019m not Dan Duggan of The Athletic, who probably has that detail tucked away in a years-old notebook somewhere.<\/p>\n

We probably already know about 75% of the 53-man roster<\/a>, maybe a little more than that. There are competitions for both roster spots and playing time that will be worth watching. Here are the five battles I think I am most interested:<\/p>\n

CB2 \u2014 Will the starting cornerback opposite Paulson Adebo be behind door Number 1 (Greg Newsome), Door No. 2 (Colton Hood), or Door No. 3 (Deonte Banks)?Defensive line \u2014 If you know who, out of Zacch Pickens, Sam Roberts, Josh Futou, Bobby Jamison-Travis, Leki Fotu, Ben Barten, and Anquin Barnes Jr. is going to make the roster, you are smarter than I am.Wide receiver \u2014 Can Odell Beckham make the roster? If he can\u2019t, who does? Is this finally the end of the line for Jalin Hyatt?Offensive line \u2014 Who will the Giants keep as their backups? Would they dare try to pass J.C. Davis through waivers and get him to the practice squad? Can Evan Neal somehow earn a spot? Will Jon Runyan face real competition for the left guard job?Safety \u2014 This is not really about roster spots. I want to know if either Ar\u2019Darius Washington or Jason Pinnock can take Tyler Nubin\u2019s starting job.<\/p>\n

Nabers, coming back from a pair of surgeries to fix a torn ACL, will avoid the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list at the beginning of camp. How much he does each day, and how he looks while doing it, is going to become a daily.<\/p>\n

I would suspect a slow ramp-up for Nabers designed to, hopefully, get him to full speed for Week 1 against the Dallas Cowboys. I would expect Nabers to do more than warm-up drills and perhaps some individual drills early in camp. Perhaps some 7-on-7 and 1-on-1 work as camp moves along, and some 11-on-11 action later in camp. I\u2019d guess there is no chance Nabers plays in a preseason game.<\/p>\n

Truthfully, as I have thought about this column over the past several days, and tried to chisel out time to write it, I have been distracted by my own thoughts about and preparations for spending the next two weeks in West Virginia.<\/p>\n

I report to West Virginia for camp on Monday, and have been pre-occupied for days with thoughts of what I needed to do before leaving, and all of the things I needed to bring. I\u2019ve resigned myself to having a couple of \u201coh, s\u2014-, I didn\u2019t bring such and such\u201d with me moments.<\/p>\n

It is a 586-mile drive from my home to my accommodations for 12 nights. I am grateful for the opportunity to cover this important stretch for the Giants in person \u2014 I have always believed seeing things with my own eyes is the only way to do this job corectly.<\/p>\n

Still, this will be the longest stretch of time ever spent away from my bride of 41 years (as of Aug. 10). I might miss the birth of our fourth grandchild, unless the little man cooperates and waits for grandpa to get home.<\/p>\n

I would, though, feel like I wasn\u2019t doing my job properly if I wasn\u2019t there. I hope you enjoy, and benfit from, the coverage here at Big Blue View of the West Virginia chapter of the upcoming season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Giants players report for training camp on Tuesday, with practice starting on Wednesday. Here are some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,7692,112064,112065,56],"class_list":["post-306530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-giants-analysis","tag-new-york-giants-preseason","tag-new-york-giants-training-camp","tag-ny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}