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Good morning, New York Giants fans! Here is a look at what is going on around the Giants.
Rookie mini-camp starts Friday
The Giants will get their initial on-field look at first-round pick Evan Engram and the rest of their rookie class when the team’s rookie mini-camp is held Friday and Saturday.
Draft picks, undrafted free agents signed to contracts and added to the 90-man roster, and tryout players hoping to earn an NFL contract will all be participating. The Giants have not announced any of their UDFA signings, though many of the names are known. NJ Advance Media has a list of some of the tryout players expected to be at the camp.
Free agency could pick up
We know that the Giants have repeatedly been linked to veteran running back LaGarrette Blount. We also looked recently at a handful of other free agents who could fit the Giants.
Well, free agent activity could pick up this week. That is because free agents signed after Tuesday will not count into the league’s compensatory pick formula. The Giants are currently projected to receive a fourth-round compensatory pick in the 2018 NFL Draft for the loss of Johnathan Hankins.
Justin Pugh: Offensive line will be better
The personnel will remain largely the same, maybe exactly the same, but Justin Pugh believes the Giants offensive line will improve this season.
“We're going to continue to get better," Pugh told NJ Advance Media after participating in a yoga class at the Health & Fitness Expo at MetLife Stadium on Sunday. "We're going to continue to keep working. Obviously, there's things that we need to get better at: Running the ball. But if you don't run the ball well, everyone wants to just point at the offensive line. And that's a fair assessment. Obviously, that's one of the barometers of a great offensive line. As we watch it on film and as we broke it down, we can make a lot of strides and impact just doing what (offensive line coach Mike) Solari is doing, keep working in the system and the coaches getting us in the right plays and the right positions."
Pugh also told NJ Advance Media he does believe the team’s heavy reliance on 11 personnel last season was a problem.
"I think we're going to be more versatile this year," Pugh said. "We're not always going to be in that 11 personnel. Towards the end of the year, people knew what was coming. That was something that definitely hurt us. To make sure we don't get into that, the offensive linemen have to do their job and run the ball well. And we have to run the ball well early to set up the play-action pass and everything and not make ourselves so one-dimensional."
In case you missed it
Here is some of what we wrote about over the weekend: