Ben McAdoo Wants Giants To Be Heavy-Handed

If there’s one thing that New York Giants head coach Ben McAdoo seems to have learned from Tom Coughlin, it’s the art of speaking to the New York media.

So while that doesn’t make for many memorable quotes, he does manage to convey some information about the state of the team and his feelings about practice that day.

Thursday the questions for McAdoo echoed those posed to defensive end Olivier Vernon. Particularly, the physicality of linebacker B.J. Goodson and the development of the Giants’ offensive line.

“Thudding”

Ever since the pads went on, there has been a marked increase in the intensity of the Giants’ practices. That is certainly to be expected, but some have been surprised at how consistently physical second year linebacker B.J. Goodson has been.

“It’s a thud tempo,” McAdoo said, “and B.J. is good at thudding. The backs need to feel it. The linebackers need to feel it. There has to be contact there.”

Asked whether or not the defense was being too ‘heavy-handed’, McAdoo said, “No. We’re going to be a physical, heavy-handed football team.”

But while being physical, “thudding”, and being “heavy-handed” are all well and good, the Giants’ coach would like to see the “dust-ups” after the whistle be reined in.

“The extracurricular stuff after the whistle is something that irritates the vets,” McAdoo said, “and those are the things we need to put an end to. You can be physical and you can be heavy-handed; you can fit your pads in and you can finish, but when that whistle blows, that extra stuff after the whistle is unnecessary.”

Offensive Line

“Yeah,” McAdoo said, “I think the offensive line had a couple of good runs the last two days. I thought it was physical. I thought the defense was physical today. I thought the offense was a little bit more physical yesterday, but the defense responded today and set the tone. That’s encouraging to see, and I think we have some young players on that second offensive line group that have a chance to push people for jobs, which I like.”

One player absent from the Giants’ starting offensive line was center Weston Richburg. Like Jason Pierre-Paul on Wednesday, Richburg got a scheduled day of rest. Replacing him was former CFL star Brett Jones. McAdoo praised Jones’ work filling in for Richburg with the starters, saying:

“Brett’s a smart, conscientious guy. He’s a tremendous communicator. When you have a new center that goes in there with the first group, there can be some differences in the way they communicate and their body language on the silent count, and today was a road game for the offense, which makes third down a challenge, but Brett’s a guy that’s built low to the ground. He’s physical, a strong player, a finisher. We have confidence in Brett.”

Injury Updates

McAdoo confirmed that defensive end Devin Taylor and running back Shane Vereen would practice in some capacity on Friday. “We’ll begin working him [Taylor] in tomorrow,” Vereen said, and added “Same. Tomorrow.” on Vereen.

On the other side, McAdoo also confirmed that linebacker Keenan Robinson is in the concussion protocol for a concussion suffered Wednesday. He also confirmed that WR Tavarres King rolled his ankle covering a punt, and that Sterling Shepard underwent an MRI to “make sure” while the Giants do their “due diligence” on the injury. McAdoo still seemed unconcerned and said it “looks like a rolled basketball ankle right now.”