What we learned from Friday’s Giants OTA

The New York Giants held their final OTA on Friday before next week’s mandaatory mini-camp. Here are a few things we learned.

Kenny Golladay is in the building

Golladay, the Giants’ biggest free-agent acquisition, was not in attendance last week. He was, though, on the field Friday.

More Golladay:

Attendance is up

In addition to Golladay, many players who weren’t in attendance last week were on hand. Among them were Dexter Lawrence, B.J. Hill and Oshane Ximines. First-round pick Kadarius Toney was in attendance a day after signing his contract, but per media on hand did not appear to be practicing.

Still, there are quite a few players not in attendance. A reminder, these workouts are voluntary.

Joe Judge not getting into vaccine debate

Giants coach Joe Judge said Friday that he had gotten his COVID-19 vaccine.

“That’s not any kind of statement one way or another. That’s pure and simple we were asked to get vaccinated by the league to be able to be part of the draft rooms, being a part of coming into our building and working,” he said.

“That’s something that for myself I thought was important to do.”

Does he expect most of the players on the team to be vaccinated by training camp? That’s not a topic Judge wanted any part of.

“I honestly couldn’t give you an answer to that,” said Judge, playing the ‘I’m not a medical professional’ card. “Everyone has a choice to make. Players, so that’s their decision. I’m not getting involved in that.”

From firehose to water fountain

Judge said rookie mini-camp can be like “drinking from a firehose” for overwhelmed first-time NFL players.

“I think with rookies what you see a lot of times is you see a level of improvement week by week moreso than the vets, because they’re so young. It’s kind of watching a bunch of pups grow up,” Judge said. “They come in, it’s drinking from a firehose in rookie mini-camp in terms of just getting on the same page. You’ve gotta remember these guys walk down the hallways they’re just trying to remember everyone’s face and names.

“When you start plugging it all together and moving fast going forward these guys it slows down for them every week.”

Judge pointed out that rookies who have been undergoing Combine training for months are not actually in football condition.

“When you get these guys from the draft into rookie mini-camp they’ve been so far removed from football training. It’s that Combine training, it’s that personal trainer, let’s go at your own pace,” Judge said. “You have to get back into team football where you’re moving at a higher intensity, at a higher volume and you’re moving in more team drills.

“They’ve gotta really get their legs back under them.”