Eli Manning: Odell Beckham 'made some plays today'

With Odell Beckham Jr. perhaps zeroing in on making his NFL debut for the New York Giants Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons, quarterback Eli Manning was asked Wednesday about finally getting in some real work with the team's first-round draft pick.

"You're still kind of hoping every time you throw it to him a go route or something and he has to stretch out for it that he doesn't over-stretch it, so we're still sensitive a little bit to that. He made some plays today," Manning said ."I think it's good, just get him in the mix, keep stressing different signals to him and different plays where he's comfortable and he's out there just playing fast.

"I don't think we can keep just a small package for him because if we're in there and going no-huddle or hurry-up, he's got to know everything so just make sure that he knows it all and we go over it a bunch so when he's in there, he's going to play fast and make plays for us."

Manning warned that "it's not going to be perfect right off the bat" between quarterback and wide receiver.

"I hope that he can be a big weapon for us. He definitely has a little burst of energy, a burst of speed. He can be a deep threat, can win on some underneath stuff. Can get him hopefully throwing some short passes and he can break it for some big plays," Manning said. "We've got to just keeping working. He's still young, we've got to get on the same page and we've got to go through this a little bit. It's not that it's going to be perfect right off the bat, we have not had a whole lot of reps together on every single route that may come up."

Manning was also asked about facing former Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora.

"He'll be fired up. Osi and I had a great relationship when he was here, but I know, as a defensive end, they always want sacks. In practice he was in the backfield quite a bit, could have hit me a number of times but you can't hit the quarterbacks," Manning said. "Hopefully our guys will do a good job and keep him away. He's a tremendous player and can still get to the quarterback."