How Giant Coaches Have Been Getting Draft Picks Up to Speed

The New York Giants’ six-member Class of 2024 may have played football for most of their young lives, but the NFL is a whole different ball of wax that can initially be overwhelming once the practice jerseys go on.

But not so much for the Giants, who were proactive in trying to start the acclimation process for their prized rookies as soon as possible.

To accomplish that, the various assistant coaches set up regular video calls with their new pupils to get them acclimated to the playbook and to life as a Giant.

Head coach Brian Daboll said the idea was to lessen the whirlwind that is the actual orientation period—also known as the rookie minicamp—and ease any performance jitters.

“We're not going to give you too much, so your head is swimming,” Daboll said of the staff's approach to the rookies this year. We're going to let you go out there and run around and compete the best you can, particularly the tryout guys. 

“Our coaches have been Face Timing or Zooming and meeting with the draft picks and trying to catch them up the best we can. It's tough for those guys when they come in. The veterans have been doing it for a while, whether it's a year or two or the past few months as we’ve been working.”

The rookies, who have one more practice on Saturday before either heading back to school or, if they are done with school, integrating with their new veteran teammates who are right now about midway through Phase 2 of the three-phase off-season program, appear to be responding well to the approach. 

“Yeah, it was me and a couple of coaches: Coach Mike (Treier), Coach Rome (Jerome Henderson), and Coach Pop (Mike Adams),” said safety Tyler Nubin of his calls.

I was just able to go through a couple of calls for like an hour a day and learn as much as possible before I get here so I can have a leg up.”

By getting a leg up on the playbook, the players were able to focus on learning life as a Giant, from how the team practices to how meetings are run, where things are in the building and all the other intangibles that are part of a football player’s life.

• RELATED: Giants Begin Two-Day Rookie Minicamp Orientation

It’s all part of how Daboll has evolved as a coach, dating back to his days as an assistant. 

“It changes every year,” he said of his teaching style. “I think you need to. The players that are out here working out live in a different time era than in 2000 when I first started.

You try to grow as a coach, your teaching methods, whether it's more walk-through—when we first started, you're always in the classroom and then throw them out there. Now, it's a lot more interactive. We try to develop that each and every year.”

The results may not come right away—the players will make mistakes, and that’s okay so long as they happen in practice, where they can be corrected. 

But the hope is that as the weeks go by and the regular season approaches, the mistakes start to dissipate, and the rookies are integrated into the fabric that will hopefully make up a winning team. 

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