New York Giants Notebook | Prepping Peppers, The Analyzer and More
Just in case Giants head coach Joe Judge hasn't made it clear enough, Daniel Jones is his guy at quarterback, and Judge makes sure to remind Jones just as much as he reminds the press of that commitment.
Judge has publicly defended Jones despite his numerous mistakes and has assured that his confidence remains behind Jones as the team's starting quarterback and even makes it a priority to assure Jones in private of his faith in him as the quarterback.
Still, the public doesn't get the full breadth of the conversations with Jones, including the numerous critical ones.
"I'm going to tell you the truth every day," Judge said of his conversations with Jones.
"You have to be mentally tough to handle that, you have to understand the criticism that we're giving to you, and you have to be able to take the coaching and move forward with it. I'll tell you what, Number 8 does that very well for us.
"Have I had private conversations with every one of our players? Absolutely. Do I say things to them that I'm not going to reveal to the public? Absolutely. That's just part of my job. We're very honest with our players. We let them know where they're at, where we need them to go, and then we put them in positions where they can work on how we can get them there."
Whether Judge's private conversations with Jones can lead to improved passing production has yet to be seen, however, and Jones will need to do right by his head coach by vindicate Judge's praise with results soother rather than later.
Prepping Peppers
Defensive back Jabrill Peppers made his return from a low ankle sprain against the Cowboys after missing the Giants' Week-4 game against the Rams but didn't fill his typical workload.
Peppers only played 35% of defensive snaps and just 3% of special teams snaps last Sunday as the coaching staff took a cautious approach to ease Peppers back into game action.
Now that Peppers is making progress in his recovery, the plan is to keep him on the field closer to his typical snap count in Week 6.
"We expect to see him have an increased role," Judge said. "We'll see as he goes through these next couple days of practice where he's at, but I was pleased with the effort he played with. Everyone comes out a little bit dinged and bruised up.
"That's just the nature of the NFL. But I thought he made some progress for us. We'll get him on the field and we'll have an idea of what load he can handle."
Cam Brown Time?
Sixth-round rookie outside linebacker Cam Brown has become a top candidate for defensive playing time with the injuries to edge rushers Oshane Ximines and Lorenzo Carter.
So far, Brown has found a home for himself as a core special teamer for the Giants but hasn't taken the next step toward becoming a defensive contributor.
With Brown already carrying a lofty load on special teams, playing an average of 82% of snaps over the last three games, the coaching staff won't hesitate to pile some defensive responsibilities on top of Brown's special teams workload.
"If this guy can play every snap on defense and every snap in the kicking game, I have no problem with that," Judge said.
"I coached Patrick Chung in 2015. This guy played every snap of defense for us and never came off the field in the kicking game either. So, if you have that type of motor, that kind of tank and you can handle that load, we'll give it to you."
"I would say for Cam, he's a guy who really is coming into his own in the kicking game. I think the one thing about special teams for young players is, it allows them to really learn and adjust to the speed of the game and the physicality. Just the reactionary instincts they have to develop within the game, that transfers over to offense or defense as well."
Harder Hard Counts
With the majority of NFL stadiums still barring fans from attendance, quarterbacks and offenses as a whole have had highly unconventional environments to work with in a sport where crowd noise can play substantially impact the flow of a game.
Particularly, quarterbacks have had to be more creative with hard counts due to how much on-field noise is now picked up by TV broadcasts and have become more dissectable for opponents.
"The quarterbacks this year are doing a good job of using the hard counts. While that shouldn't be something that impacts defenses across the league, it is, and the quarterbacks have done a great job of that," Judge said.
"I think you see a lot of teams changing up their communication on the line of scrimmage because of how much you can hear on TV copies and how much the microphones pick up.
"That being said, we've already noticed a lot of teams that are changing up their verbiage. We've made adjustments ourselves along the way to account for what other teams can pick up on us."
The Analyzer
Edge rusher Kyler Fackrell has made his presence known in his first year with the Giants, as he finds himself tied for the team lead in sacks with two and the scorer of the team's only defensive touchdown this year with a pick-six against the Cowboys last week.
As prominent of a physical presence Fackrell has been, his mind has been just as crucial to preparing the defense from his spot on the edge.
Giants outside linebackers coach Bret Bielema called Fackrell "the analyzer," referring to his preparation of his opponents and how he breaks down his technique to build improvements.
For Fackrell, having that mental preparation is just as crucial as any burst or swim move.
"I like to have a clear picture of what I need to do within the defense," Fackrell said. "I feel like that is what allows me to feel confident and to feel free. Once I know what I need to do or what my responsibility is, then there are different ways that I can fulfill that responsibility.
"I want to know and need to know the details and the reasons for how the defense is supposed to be played to be able to feel confident and kind of step out when I need to and still be able to do my responsibility."
