Many Giants giving up day off to prepare better

The Giants had just won, 34-10, in Houston, and David Diehl was trying to explain why. He didn't point to Hakeem Nicks' two touchdowns or stopping the Texans' running game. Instead, he remembered how hard it was to find a good parking spot at the team's practice facility earlier in the week.

"Even after the big win over Chicago," Diehl said, "I saw more guys in on Tuesday watching film, lifting weights, ready to get back after it."

Tuesday is the day off for an NFL player. There are no meetings, no practices, no assignments. But lately, more and more of the Giants players have been deciding to spend their free time at the Timex Performance Center. And they believe that although the games are being won on Sundays, the victories are rooted in Tuesdays.

"The will to prepare is just as important as the will to win," defensive tackle Chris Canty said. "So we've got to be willing to put in the work and the preparation in order to be successful on Sundays."

The first part of Canty's comment might sound more like the text from a fortune cookie, but he might be more zealous about the meaning behind the words because he's a new convert. In his first four years in the league with the Cowboys, Canty said Tuesdays were a time to relax and unwind. Now, though, he spends them working.

"This is definitely a learned behavior," he said. "It's one of those things where you're like 'Man, this is my only day off.' And then you come to the realization that in the NFL there are no days off, not during the season. You approach it as such, you respect it as such, and you go about your business."

Some players learn that lesson earlier than others. Eli Manning has been coming in on Tuesdays since he entered the league, but he was mentored to do so not only by his father and brother but also by Kurt Warner, the hard-working seat-warmer in Eli's rookie year.

Others, like Canty, take some convincing.

"The days that you're laying up and taking off, your opponent is working, so you don't ever want to be put in a situation where somebody has outworked you in the preparation part and gives themselves a better opportunity to be successful on Sunday," Canty said.

"We're in a performance business and I want to have the best opportunity to perform on Sundays. For me, a big part of that is coming in on Tuesdays."

On Tuesdays the coaches are putting together a game plan. The front office is mulling the transaction wire. Many players spend that day dissecting opponents' tendencies and habits, pounding out the dents from the previous week's performance, and readying their bodies for another day of collisions.

"They get a tremendous amount out of it because they get ahead," Tom Coughlin said. "I think it gives guys a nice head start and it pays off . . . It's about guys wanting to do a better job in their profession."

Coughlin cannot insist that the players do that. He probably shouldn't even "encourage" them to do that. But there is certainly some peer pressure that brings more and more players into the building on their day off. Canty saw someone else working on a Tuesday and decided he should, too. Then someone else will see Canty doing it and join the group. Pretty soon Diehl can't find a parking spot up close.

Canty said there is no peer pressure, though. At least not verbally.

"It's a mandatory players' day off, so there's nobody who can set the tempo for that," he said, "except for the individual."