Giants news, 9/14: Kaelin Clay will get another chance, more

Good morning, New York Giants fans! Here are your Friday morning headlines.

Sticking with Clay

The Giants won’t give up on punt returner Kaelin Clay after one unproductive game (three returns, 4 yards) that included a game-ending turnover on a muffed punt.

“You’re not just going to give him one chance and throw him away,” special team coordinator Thomas McGaughey said on Thursday. “There’s a lot of things that happen over the course of the game that we all kind of want to get back, but Kaelin is a pro. This is his third year (in this league) going in, he’s made a lot of plays in this league, and I expect him to do that moving forward.”

Clay, 26, has averaged 8.8 yards on 45 punt returns with two touchdowns and 23.2 yards on 17 kickoff returns in his career. The muff was the fourth fumble of Clay’s career on 68 touches, including six pass receptions.

Odell Beckham sore after return

The game against Jacksonville was Beckham’s first since Week 5 of the 2017 season when he suffered a fractured ankle. After catching 11 passes in 15 targets while playing 68 snaps he admitted “feeling it.”

“I’m not going to lie, I was sore after the game,” Beckham said. “First time in, whatever how many days it was, 300 something, getting hit out there. I felt good to make it out, but I was feeling it. I was feeling it the Monday after.”

“The sky is the limit”

Running back Saquon Barkley is optimistic about the capability of the offense despite scoring just 15 points against the Jaguars.

“The sky is the limit. I knew that before we even got on the field,” Barkley said. “If you go back and you look at the game, there’s just little things, little mistakes we made as a team that kind of kept putting us playing behind the line of scrimmage. Getting behind the sticks, that’s what I meant. Little stuff like that, if we continue to work on that and get better in those areas and execute the opportunities that we had, definitely the game could be a very different outcome. But you’ve got to give credit to Jacksonville.”

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