Just because New York Giants wide receiver Sterling Shepard is nursing a fractured thumb doesn’t mean he’s sitting on the sidelines sulking.
Shepard is running routes in drills wearing a no-contact yellow ‘pinny’ to indicate to the quarterbacks to not pass the ball in his direction and for the other players to avoid making contact with him.
Well, except that one time…
“I think it’s a good thing that he’s out there,” said head coach Pat Shurmur. “He can catch the ball with one hand. The yellow jersey means don’t throw it to him. It also means on defense, don’t hit him. I think that part is good. You’ve got to practice football. It’s something that him being out there is a good thing. It also shows it’s a thumb. We’ll worry about that as we go.”
Shepard is healthy enough to run with the team in drills and scrimmages. It will keep him in shape and also help him remain acclimated to the speed of the game. Sitting on the sidelines doesn’t help anyone. Shurmur told reporters he sees a great benefit in allowing nicked up players on the practice field.
“Any player practicing, there’s a little bit of a risk — for anything. That’s why we try to be smart. That’s why we try to watch the players and see individually where they’re at, and then go from there,” Shurmur said. “Because if not, we’d just throw everybody in bubble wrap and we’ll see you opening day. We all understand that that’s not how we do it. Now the challenge is to be smart. Guys that are dealing with injuries, bring them back at the pace that they can come back. But also, then be able to practice.
“He wants to be out here. He’s a team player. He knows he needs to work. We all do. Ideally, every player practices every day. You can just look at every team throughout the league. There’s guys on every team that, for whatever reason, aren’t practicing and they’ll be back tomorrow, aren’t practicing and they’ll be back in two days. Then there are guys that are practicing. That’s just the nature of training camp because of some of the physicality that goes with it.”
That is why the Giants are optimistic Shepard will be ready for the season opener September 8 in Dallas.
