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| Not Bad, After All | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 6 2004, 07:20 AM (17 Views) | |
| InsightToRiot | Aug 6 2004, 07:20 AM Post #1 |
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Keeper of Real
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Not bad, after all Camp Coughlin has turned out to be more mentally tough than physical, contrary to the coach's reputation and precamp media hype BY NEIL BEST STAFF CORRESPONDENT August 6, 2004 ALBANY -- It is too early to draw sweeping conclusions about the Giants after one week of camp, but at least one unexpected theme has emerged, to the relief of his players: Tom Coughlin is not a lunatic. Based on the new coach's reputation and media hype, Coughlin was expected to run his players into the ground with brutal practices in an effort to beat last year's 4-12 finish out of them. Instead, players have discovered a coach fanatical about preparation, learning, discipline and detail, but not inclined toward excessive physical demands. Even the weather has softened the burden. Coughlin wanted hot and humid weather, but it has been a cool camp, with forecast highs in the 60s this weekend. "We still have a whole season to play," 335-pound defensive tackle Norman Hand said. "He's doing a good job of keeping our legs up under us." That was the last thing most people expected to hear about Camp Coughlin. But the players have not so much as run a post-practice sprint since Saturday, although they do plenty of running in sessions that emphasize finishing off plays and hustling from drill to drill. On the three days with two practices, Coughlin has had players in full uniform, including football pants, in the morning and shoulder pads, shorts and thigh pads in the afternoon. On the other three days, they wore only light shoulder pads called shells. Coughlin ran a notoriously rough camp in 1995, his first year with the Jaguars, but in later years, he followed a similar approach to the one he has used here. Still, many players and journalists assumed that he would turn up the heat in his first camp with the Giants. Not so. The way players describe his style is "efficient." That is particularly evident in his tightly packed two-hour practices, in which no session lasts very long and assistants bark instructions and teach technique non-stop. Under Jim Fassel, the team would be on the field far longer, often conducting a walk-through before practice. "Everything is very efficient," defensive end Michael Strahan said. "You don't waste a lot of time. You are not on the field for four hours doing a bunch of nothing. When you're out there, you work." Receiver Amani Toomer said: "Definitely, it's efficient. We'd be out there for hours with Jim. This is less physically demanding, but he gives you an opportunity to work harder because you're fresher." Being fresher also allows the players to think more clearly, a must under Coughlin. He loves meetings and loathes mental mistakes. "He forces everybody to be a smarter football player and not beat yourself," Hand said. "This camp is definitely mentally tough." One example is Coughlin's focus on the unusual situations teams face, the kind that beat the Giants in critical games each of the past two seasons. Coughlin mentions them in his nightly team meeting, sometimes illustrated by video. Wednesday, Coughlin had the offense practice running out the clock in a situation in which six seconds are left and he does not want to risk a punt. A wide receiver would run long and the quarterback would launch a high throw intended to be incomplete. He said they used up 6.4 seconds that way. Yesterday, Coughlin had the offense practice lining up over the ball in a situation in which a replay review was pending and the team had no timeouts with 13 seconds left. If the offense lingered in the huddle after the ruling, it could lose valuable seconds when the clock re-started. "There is nothing we do," Coughlin said, "that doesn't happen [in real games]." I don't know about anyone else, but I was hoping he'd be a little harder on them. Maybe just one or two days of more field work by now (a half hour or so) and then back to the regular schedule for the rest of the time. The players obviously braced themselves for torture, so he could have gotten a way with a couple of days of semi-torture in the beginning. But it's obvious that with the mindset they went in with, even a harder camp would seem easier. |
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3:41 AM Jul 11