The New York Giants are preparing for their second meeting of the season with their NFC East rivals, the Dallas Cowboys on Monday night at MetLife Stadium.
The team’s three coordinators — Mike Shula (offense), James Bettcher (defense) and Thomas McGaughey (special teams) — met with the media on Friday to discuss the state of their units heading into this week’s game with the first place Cowboys.
Offensive coordinator Mike Shula
Giants rookie wide receiver Darius Slayton only had two receptions but they both went for touchdowns. Slayton and fellow rookie, quarterback Daniel Jones, have developed a symmetry that has the organization excited.
Slayton seems to have not only world class speed but excellent field sense and a great pair of hands.
“The one thing I’ll say about that, and the first thing I want to say is that he played just like he practiced last week,” Shula said of Slayton. “All week long, he was doing the same thing. He just got into the game and did a really good job. He’s been impressive. He still has a long way to go. He’s a young guy. He’s learning on adjustments, on releases, on making contested catches. But he does a really good job of, like you said, going up and having strong hands. I think he learned from the New England game, where he had, against a really good corner, a very similar opportunity and their corner did a good job and made a play. Like everybody else and everything else, just kind of looking for when he has those opportunities again, be consistent and do those same things.”
Shula is still developing that rookie quarterback and is helping guide him through his first season at the helm of the Giants’ offense. He doesn’t want to see Jones dwell too much on his mistakes. He needn’t worry.
Defensive coordinator James Bettcher
The talk of the defense this week is naturally the addition of former Pro Bowler Leonard Williams, who Bettcher expects will see a lot of action right off the bat against Dallas on Monday.
“I think long, explosive, a guy who’s tough, very versatile,” said Bettcher of Williams. “Over the last two years he’s played in two different schemes with the Jets and played nose, played three technique, played five, played on the outside, played over the tight end, so you see the versatility of the player, and he plays hard. He plays hard. He’s gotten here and you can see he’s an extremely hard worker. He gets in here at the beginning of the week, and here I guess we’re three quarters of the way through the week and he’s not making mistakes, he’s locked in on what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, and he’s working his tail off. So, we’re excited to have him, we’re excited to have an opportunity to work with him.”
Special Team coordinator Thomas McGaughey
This week the Giants signed lefty punter Sean Smith to help them prepare for Dallas’ Chris Jones, who is also a lefty.
“It’s always something that you’re conscious of. It’s a different spin of the ball,” McGaughey explained. “We had Ryan Anderson here all through the offseason and during training camp, so our guys got used to catching the lefty punter. We got a kid in this week that is punting to us. It’s always something that you’re conscious of.”
Corey Ballentine could be returning from a concussion this week, but McGaughey isn’t eager to put him back in as the team’s primary kickoff returner.
“Anytime you have a guy coming off a concussion, for myself as a special teams coach, I’m always kind of leery about it. It’s from player to player. Each guy is different in how they react to the concussions. For me as a coach, I am very cautious in my approach of putting them out there.
We’ve got options back there with Cody Latimer, Darius (Slayton), we’ve got options. I don’t know if I’ll put him back there, but he’s been practicing at it— he’s done a good job at it. He was one of the better kickoff returners in the league before he got hurt. We’ll figure it out. By the end of the week, we’ll figure out who will be back there.”
