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New York Giants News, 8/6: Sterling Shepard Feels Ready To Play

Notes on Shepard, Eli Manning, more

By Ed Valentine
NFL: Preseason-New York Giants at Buffalo Bills Kevin Hoffman-USA TODAY Sports

There was good news from Saturday’s practice on injured wide receiver Sterling Shepard. Let’s get caught up on that and the rest of the New York Giants headlines.

Shepard: I Could Play Now

Wide receiver Sterling Shepard, out since rolling an ankle on Wednesday, stretched with the team Saturday and did some running and cutting on his own. He said that if the Giants had a game he would “easily” be ready to play.

“I made some pretty good progress over these last few days,” Shepard said. “Been in the training room, getting ice. The swelling went down, so I got to run around a little bit today.

“It feels really good. If it was game day, I could easily go, but I have a little bit of time, so they want to take it slow.”

Blue vs. Yellow

In the words of linebacker Jonathan Casillas, the Giants “basically had a scrimmage” on Saturday between young players and veteran ones during a special teams drill in which blockers went one-on-one with coverage guys.

Veteran corner Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie quickly claimed that the blue side was victorious. “I’m all for the blue side,” he said.

Eli Manning: Offense Did Well

Giants’ quarterback Eli Manning was pleased with the way the offense performed on Saturday.

“I thought we had some good stuff,” he said. “Any time you get into the red zone emphasis practice, it’s like a brand new offense. New plays, new stuff, it was good. Yesterday we got to walk-through the red zone stuff because when you are out there you want to make sure guys know what they are doing. Everything happens a little bit faster down there. So I thought we had some good things. Guys made some plays going up against a good defense. Defense made some plays as well and made some good calls, but we took care of the ball and got a few touchdowns.”

Manning Didn’t Like Calling Plays

The Giants’ QB didn’t practice on Friday, one of several veterans given the day off. Instead, the Giants put him to work using a walkie-talkie to call in the plays to the other quarterbacks. He said it was “lonely.”

“I don’t like it,” Manning said. “You are kind of just by yourself, you can’t talk to anyone else. As the plays go on, you get to watch it for a second, and then you are back down trying to figure out what’s the next play to call. And that’s just when it’s scripted, so a lot of respect to the playcallers always. But it’s kind of a lonely island out there when you gotta call them. I would rather be in the back watching plays, talking to receivers about scenarios and different things, but it was fun, it was a good experience.”

Quotable

— Manning on Michael Strahan’s speech to players on Saturday

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