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New York Giants players have a message for fans hitting the panic button over the team’s struggles on offense during the first three preseason games. Relax.
“Relax,” running back Shane Vereen said. “It is preseason for a reason. It is camp for a reason. There are a lot of times where the coaches have something else in mind. Something that we need to work on, something that we don’t need to work on, something that they need to see. It is what it is. It counts on September 11 (when the Giants open their season Dallas).”
“It is preseason, so you don't want to show everything that you have,” said wide receiver Sterling Shepard, a rookie who has clearly learned quickly. “We have the personnel to do it. We have guys that are ready and hungry to play. I don't feel like what has happened in the preseason is going to affect us in the regular season at all.”
“Hopefully, you progress as you go on,” center Weston Richburg said. “We’re looking to progress from last week and get better. Once we get into week one. we can hopefully set a standard and progressively get better from there.
“As an offensive line, we know we have work to do. I think to get this whole thing going we all have to watch the film and know what we’re doing to get better and have a better result on the field.”
Coach Ben McAdoo is confident the Giants are heading in the right direction.
“I feel like we're building a strong football team. We created a foundation and we keep adding to that foundation,” McAdoo said. “The fundamentals are coming, the physicality is coming. We're not where we want to be just yet, but thank goodness we're not where we used to be. Next week will be a big week for us.”
McAdoo not talking about playing time
How much will starters play in Thursday’s preseason finale against the New England Patriots? McAdoo wasn’t ready to discuss that on Tuesday.
‘We're going to take a look at play time at 6 o’clock this afternoon,” McAdoo said. “We're going to look at it on a case-by-case basis. We're not just going to say that starters are going to play 10 plays or 20 plays, nothing like that. We're going to look at it on a case-by-case basis.