The New York Giants know which young players they’re going to work with this season, but the process is a bit different this year due to the current pandemic. The Giants were limited in the contact they could have with prospects before the draft because of this, and a number of visits that would have been held face to face were instead held digitally.
Additionally, their offseason activities have been thrown off from the regular schedule even with the draft being concluded, as restrictions haven’t yet been lifted. The future of this season’s training camp and certain other steps in the offseason still hang in the balance, but one thing that avoided getting cancelled is rookie minicamp.
According to head coach Joe Judge, who spoke on MSG 150 at Home, that minicamp went well.
“We had our rookie minicamp last week, which was really our first exposure as an entire organization to them and them to us in terms of laying out our expectations and what we’re going to demand from them. The biggest thing with these rookies is that it’s far from just the X’s and O’s that are important,” Judge said.
“With these rookies, it’s so much about just teaching them about the league. Teaching what it takes to be a professional, how important their bodies really are to them and how accountable they are to really maintain the shape they are in to compete,” the Giants head coach continued.
Minicamp is perhaps more important this year than it was last year, because while the Giants don’t have a new quarterback, they have multiple players who are expected to step in as immediate starters. Andrew Thomas was drafted under that assumption, thanks to the failure of Nate Solder’s run at left tackle, while Xavier McKinney looks like the likely starter at safety next to Jabrill Peppers in addition to being competition for Jordan Love, last season’s breakout player in the secondary.
It remains to be seen how training camp will be conducted given the current situation, but at least the Giants can say that there haven’t been any problems so far with the rookie class due to the limited contact the staff has been able to have so far.