Giants Training Camp

My wife & I went upstate this weekend, first to Giants Training Camp at SUNY Albany on Saturday afternoon. It was mostly relaxing. It happened to also be autograph day, but until that time, it was a nice, easy-going day. We bought a Giants cap and football to get signatures on.

They use two adjacent fields for camp. The four QBs - Manning, Hasselbeck, Lorenzen & Johnson - all wear red of course, and they kept going back & forth between the fields. Most of the time, the offense (wearing white) was on one field, while the D (wearing blue) practiced on the other.

QBs: lost of passing drills, sometimes just throwing to a waterboy, and sometimes to the actual WRs.

DBs: half ran routes like WRs while the other half practiced their coverage skills.

Linemen practiced blocking skills.

The back-up punter, Travis Dorsch, got a lot of practice, while K Jay Feely caught most of the punts. He even caught one behind his back, eliciting applause from the fans watching.

The last practice set was scrimagging, O vs. D. Manning made some nice throws, and Tim Carter especially looked good. On one play Shockey got upset over something (I think he wasn't thrown to) and kicked the shit out of a cone representing the goal line. It was pretty funny (to me).

We lined up for autographs, but didn't get any of the superstars - Manning, Shockey, Barber, Plaxico, Arrington, Strahan, Osi - to sign for us. We did however, get David Diehl, Mathias Kiwanuka, Michael Jennings (whose every tooth is plated gold), Sam Madison, Eric Moore, and several others who I didnt recognize, nor can I read the autograph. Most of them, I must say, were very nice, especially to kids. Manning would take the footballs from kids, walk away, sign it, and throw it back to them.

I overheard some fans saying that Shockey was signing autographs, but then when he didn't sign for one guy, he cursed him out. Shockey got upset and left. It really sucks when someone will curse out a player just because he didnt get an autograph, ruining it for everyone else.

I didnt see Tom Coughlin anywhere, but I did see Tim Lewis and Mike Sweatman, and they seemed to be doing fine jobs, getting on the players, yelling instructions, etc.