Monthly Archives: July 2008
Coach Tom Coughlin told reporters that the injury Plaxico Burress is currently dealing with is a different right ankle ailment than the torn deltoid ligament than he sustained last year.
“This is different. It’s not the same problem,” Coughlin said after this morning’s practice. “I just think it’s a little bit of structure and something he’s going to have to deal with. … It’s not the same. Same ankle, but not the same injury.”
Coughlin said he expects Burress to return in a ‘few days’
“He had some soreness. Hopefully, by mid-week he’ll do something,” Coughlin said. “It’s a situation where he has orthotics and he really has to wear them. That’s going to help and hopefully the soreness will be gone so he can work this week.”
WR Mario Manningham was yanked from practice with a quad injury.
“He’s got some quad soreness,” Coughlin said. “About halfway through the individual (drills), Ronnie (Barnes) said he really thought he had to shut himself down. I don’t know the extent of it. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Ralph Vacchiano reports notes from this weekends training camp exercises on his blog for the Daily News. Among them is word that rookie WR Mario Manningham has not been seperating himself thus far in camp exercises. CB Terrell Thomas is keeping up with him step for step even though Manningham should have him beat, Aaron Ross was able to do the same.
Other notes include a bad day for Eli Manning and Michael Jennings barely holding onto a roster spot.
The Giants did not practice Sunday and instead spent the day in meetings and doing conditioning work.
They returned to the practice fields today, with their second practice shifting into the evening.
Vinny Di Trani of The Record reports that coach Tom Coughlin confirmed that Giants team doctor Russell Warren checked out WR Plaxico Burress and found that Plaxico has a legitimate ankle injury.
There has been speculation that Burress was using the injury as an excuse for sitting out for a restructured contract.
Burress has been working out on a stationary bike and catching balls from a Jugs machine in the meantime. He isn’t expect to return to more extended activities until the middle of next week at the earliest.
Jeremy Clark, a defensive tackle who played on the Eagles practice squad last season, has been signed by the Giants to take Nate Robinson‘s place. Robinson pulled his hamstring in the first day of camp and was waived.
Plaxico Burress spent the morning session on a stationary bicycle and catching some passes from a Jugs machine. Burress is still claiming his ankle is sore but its more likely he’s waiting for a new contract.
CB Kevin Dockery and rookie CB Terrell Thomas did a nice job breaking up passes to rookie WR Mario Manningham. Rookie S Kenny Phillips made a leaping catch but couldn’t hold onto an interception of a pass deflected off WR Brandon London.
Coach Tom Coughlin has been impressed with the work ethic he’s seen out of his linebacker Mathius Kiwanuka
“His attitude is this: If you tell him to be in there twice, he’s in there three times,” Coughlin said. “He is a very focused guy.”
Kiwanuka has been at every single practice in camp despite being expected to practice just once a day. He had surgery to repair a broken left fibula and corresponding ankle damage.
“Especially in my position, I need all the reps I can get. I haven’t played in a long time, so every rep out there is fun for me.”
Jeremy Shockey went down with the same injury, and Kiwanuka expressed how he understood how hard it was for him to see Shockey leave.
“For a guy like that, he put his heart and soul into this organization for a long time and he was a vocal leader, an energy guy, he was kind of the face and the voice of this team for a long time,” Kiwanuka said. “There’s people out here who turn around and say maybe we’re better off without him. That’s something, as a player, it stings. The guy goes hard every day in practice and it’s no surprise if somebody says something bad about him he’s going to take it personally, because he takes everything personal, whether it’s a compliment or a knock against him.”
Paul Schwartz at the New York Post writes that Giants WR Domenik Hixon is taking advantage of the additional time he’s seeing in camp with the absence of Plaxico Burress.
Hixon came to the Giants last October, when he was placed on waivers by the Denver Broncos. Coach Tom Coughlin has noticed his work thus far.
“Hixon had an impressive spring,” Coughlin said. “He did a good job. I told him he was one guy who had an impressive spring that we really counted on.”
Hixon made a diving catch this afternoon against CB Corey Webster and later caught a TD pass on a fade pattern against CB Aaron Ross.
Another Giants WR trying to make an impact in camp is Sinorice Moss. The Giants 2006 second-round draft pick, dropped a well-thrown deep ball thrown by Anthony Wright, causing a fan at the University at Albany to yell “Turn in your playbook, Sinorice.”
Antonio Pierce spoke to reporters at camp. Here are some selected quotes from his comments.
On the team needing to finding a new identity this year.
I feel that every year you need to find your new identity. It’s ’08, a whole new game plan, new faces. Coaches are already putting in new things. Everything is different about this year. Obviously everyone wants to talk about last year, but that’s in the past.
Regarding lacking leadership with Strahan leaving.
That’s a funny question. What do you mean leaders? Who has been here the last three years? Well, if you guys don’t know, then I don’t know, either.
On if the team has a different personality this year.
I think so, of course. You lose a couple of characters, a couple of personalities, some new personalities show up. It’s harder when you have older guys with strong personalities for other guys’ personalities to show up, but now you’ve seen it. Some of our younger guys, some of our other guys are showing a little bit more.
Regarding camp being different without Strahan and Shockey.
Strahan wasn’t here last year, so that’s nothing different. With Jeremy though, just that competitiveness, that loud guy. That nature boy, as we call him. You miss those fun things about him, his little antics.
Amani Toomer looked great in camp today, kicking off workouts with a nice over the shoulder catch from Eli Manning into double coverage along the sidelines. Ralph Vacchiano reports that Toomer had several nice catches in practice to continue his great minicamp in June.
Vacchiano provides a great rundown of news from camp on his blog for the Daily News, which includes word that Brandon Jacobs, Derrick Ward and Ahmad Bradsaw all saw equal opportunites to run the ball in practice.
Vacchiano also reports that the crowd gave Kevin Boss a huge ovation at camp when he made his first catch. Speaking of Bossman, he has a new website at KevinBossMan.com, and was nice enough to provide Giants Football Blog with two t-shirts for our lucky readers.
We will give the shirts to two readers who contribute the best comments on the blog on Monday, as voted by their fellow readers.
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