Tom Coughlin, isolationist

Quite a few teams are pairing up to practice together at this point in training camp. The Patriots are practicing with the Eagles. The Bengals are practicing with the Falcons. But the Giants just continue to play by themselves.

“I’ve done that before,” Tom Coughlin said, “but not recently.”

The last time was in 2005 when the Giants tried to spend some time practicing with the Jets. That turned into a roadhouse brawl with chairs being broken over players’ backs and guys being tossed through plate glass windows. Seventeen players went on IR that day, which became known as "the Antietam of the NFL." Well, almost. But there were a few incidents.

Since then, Tom Coughlin has been an isolationist in terms of training camp practices. He explained why Wednesday.

“We have 90 or 86 (players) or whatever we have,” he said. “We have plenty of work to do right here. It’s very early in camp. You’d like to think we’d be a little more refined.”

Coughlin also noted that when the offense plays against the defense, the team is working 22 players at a time. They’d only work 11 at a time against another squad.

“You bring another team in here and I don’t know that you’re going to get as many snaps as these guys get every day,” Coughlin said.

And then there is the pairing, which is what led to the fiasco with the Jets nearly a decade ago. The two teams were on different wavelengths as far as the intensity of the practice and it led to disharmony.

“You also have to be very, very much aware of who you’re working against,” Coughlin said.

Of course, the Giants and other teams already have a chance to try out their plays and test their players against an opponent other than themselves. It’s called preseason games, and Coughlin said that four of those are “plenty.”

He didn’t rule out a return to the two-team practices, though. And maybe the next Giants head coach in a year or two or 10 will see things differently.

“We used to do this all the time,” Coughlin said. “Years ago everybody did and so on and so forth and then it kind of disappeared a little bit … But if there’s an advantage, then I think people go ahead and do that.”