Practice report for 7/23: A quick pace, a quick break, and a Wynn-win

I said yesterday that I would try to time the snaps when the Giants were in the hurry-up portion of their offense, and I am nothing if not a man of my word. The results that I procured indicate that the Giants are moving at a very brisk speed.

First some background on my un-scientific procedure. I used the stopwatch function on my iPhone and hit the lap button every time the ball was snapped. That gave me a running list of the number of seconds between the snaps. The fastest time was about 17 seconds. The slowest was around 33. Keep in mind this is the time between snaps, not the time between the end of the play and the next snap. So if you figure it takes 7-10 seconds for a play to be run (I’m estimating), the time in between the ball being set in place and the snap is phenomenally fast. In that span Ben McAdoo radios the play into Eli Manning’s helmet, he communicates it with the players, and they run it. There were also times when entire personnel packaged were switched in and out, including the quarterback. I defy you to find where those took place in the chart below. And, I should note, there were times when Manning came to the line and looked to be changing the play.

So, here are the results:

Time between snap 1 & 2 – 23.33 seconds

Time between snap 2 & 3 – 20.25

Time between snap 3 & 4 – 33.80

Time between snap 4 & 5 – 25.50

Time between snap 5 & 6 – 29.51

Time between snap 6 & 7 – 32.07

Time between snap 7 & 8 – 24.26

Time between snap 8 & 9 – 18.63

Time between snap 9 & 10 – 23.64

Time between snap 10 & 11 – 25.74

Time between snap 11 & 12 – 23.40

Time between snap 12 & 13 – 27.82

Time between snap 13 & 14 – 21.25

Time between snap 14 & 15 – 21.41

Time between snap 15 & 16 – 27.25

All told the Giants snapped the ball 16 times on offense and the time from the first snap to the last took 6:26.52 seconds. That works out to 24.1575 seconds per snap. I’m sure my math may have a glitch or two somewhere, but needless to say the Giants are blazing. No wonder they needed a break.

Oh yeah, after the Giants finished up that hurry-up segment they went into the fieldhouse for five minutes of shade and air conditioning. This after a bunch of players needed to be carted off the field in Tuesday’s workout. Tom Coughlin was a little defensive regarding the siesta when asked about it during his post-practice press conference.

“Breaks have been going on for a thousand years, I don’t know how many camps you’ve been to,” Coughlin said. This is my seventh training camp covering the Giants. I;ve never seen them do that.

He added that he didn’t really think the players needed it despite the high heat and humidity.

“Not today,” he said. “We had breeze and we had cloud cover. But I said I was going to do it and I went ahead and did it. If I keep it it’ll be because of the heat that we experienced yesterday. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

He also said that after the players have their break, “then they should be flying around.”

Ok, enough math and weather. Let’s get to the football.

Odell Beckham Jr. did not participate in the practice because of a hamstring strain he suffered on Tuesday, but that didn’t stop him from making the play of the day. He was standing idly in the back of the end zone during some kickoff drills when the ball came shooting towards him. While he held his helmet in his left hand he gently reached up with his right and made a one-handed over-the-head catch. Kind of like this one you may have seen online. Pretty impressive.

By the way, Beckham did tweak the hamstring on that deep pass yesterday. Coughlin said he got his feet tangled up with Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie while making a move on the route and pulled up.

The Giants went deep only once today as well, this time on an Eli Manning pass for Trindon Holliday. It was a smidge overthrown. Later in practice Manning wanted to go deep down the right sideline for Victor Cruz (where has he been this camp?) but he was covered by Stevie Brown so Manning ate the ball.

Will Beatty took some reps. So did John Jerry. Brandon Mosley, who barfed on the field yesterday, was back out there at right guard today. And Jameel McClain, who was having some foot issues yesterday and was carted off much to the horror of those who witnessed it, practiced.

Some notes from the practice plays:

DRC made a nice break-up on a pass from Manning to Jernigan in 11s … When the Giants got to the goal-line in their hurry-up segment, Andre Williams came in just as he did yesterday. You can definitely see that being his role early on (fantasy alert!) … Adrien Robinson made a couple of nice catches in practice, but he’s still one behind Julius Thomas in their first two years … Walter Thurmond made a physical break-up on a pass for Rueben Randle … Brandon McManus was 4-for-4 on FGs and showed a very strong leg. That will be an interesting competition, especially if both he and Josh Brown play well in the summer. Do you go with the vet or try to save a few bucks with the kid? Hmmm … Holliday dropped a pass from Nassib in 7s … Jacquian Williams made a nice play breaking up a pass from Nassib to Jernigan. Later, in 11s, Williams and DaMontre Moore were chasing Nassib out of the pocket with some nice pressure … Nassib hit Robinson with a seam pass in 7s off play-action. I always chuckle when the offense uses play-action in 7-on-7 drills because the whole idea is that it’s a passing drill and there is no running … Nassib threw a bad interception to C.J. Barnett in which he appeared to slip while throwing the ball … Curtis Painter ran six plays in the final 11-on-11 segment of practice. Four of them were runs, one of them was a coverage sack he never threw, and the only pass was an incompletion for a diving Larry Donnell … Kerry Wynn made a nice stuff on a run by Kendall Gaskins in that final stanza. It was a Wynn-win.

Bands!