Tom Coughlin's motto this season: Improvement
Giants head coach Tom Coughlin, center, looks on as field as players, including defensive tackle Markus Kuhn, right, run through a physical evaluation drill on the opening day of training camp. (July 26, 2012) Credit: AP
ALBANY -- The one-word pithiness of "Finish" as a motto has been replaced by a more complex theme for the 2012 season.
"The message is one of improvement," Tom Coughlin said Thursday as the Giants reported to training camp. "It's one of taking full advantage of setting the bar in what we were able to do in the last six games of the year and analyzing the [first] 14 and the last six and saying to ourselves: 'Which team are we here?'
"The comparison between the last six and the first 14, you just kind of shake your head," Coughlin added.
The Giants are coming off a Super Bowl victory but seem to be dwelling more on their 9-7 regular-season record.
"An awful lot of emphasis is on improvement," Coughlin said. "We want to continue with 'All in' and 'Finish,' but we'd also like to come out of the starting gate and we'd like to sustain, we'd like to finish and we'd like to establish some kind of consistency that we think we're capable of playing with."
But those ideas won't fit neatly on the back of a T-shirt.
"The message,'' Coughlin said, "is a little lengthy for that."
Nicks, Canty on PUP
WR Hakeem Nicks (foot), DT Chris Canty (knee), TE Travis Beckum (knee) and LB Clint Sintim (knee) will start training camp on the PUP list. None of them is a surprise, although Nicks and Canty had been talking about returning for the start of camp. Coughlin said Nicks has just started running in a pool but remains on track for a mid-August return. As for Canty, who had an arthroscopic procedure in the offseason, Coughlin said he'll "be a while."
Giant steps
Eli Manning said one of the things he's looking forward to this training camp is bonding with teammates while watching the Olympics. "The competitions are going on at night and you get a bunch of guys in the same room and cheering for the U.S.," he said . . . T Will Beatty (back) will be limited early in camp and did not run the conditioning test . . . Ken Sternfeld was announced as the Giants' new director of pro personnel, taking over for Dave Gettleman, who had held the position since 1999. Gettleman will remain with the organization as senior pro personnel analyst. Sternfeld had been Gettleman's assistant since 2002.
