Lawrence Tynes may have been honored by the people of Scotland and Great Britain, but the people of the New York Giants clearly are expecting more from him in 2010. That’s why the team has been poking around other kickers during the offseason – heck, they even did it during the past regular season – looking for help in the area. Tynes knows all about it and even said he heard that the Giants had made a contract offer to kickoff specialist Rhys Lloyd who wound up signing with the Vikings.

“Rhys Lloyd kicks off better than me, what do you want me to say?” he noted. “If they wanted to sign a kickoff specialist, great. I’m going to definitely work my butt off to improve in that area, which I know I can do. I tried some things last year that mechanically didn’t work. I ended up finishing the last 12 games almost 90 percent on field goals, I kicked off really well in the last five or six games. I’m looking forward to big things this year.”

Part of that optimism comes from having the same field goal battery for the first time in seven years (not counting 2008 when John Carney did almost all of the kicking for the Giants). That means Tynes was very glad to have Jeff Feagles back for a 23rd NFL season.

“With Zak (DeOssie) and Jeff back, for me, I’ve never had that so I’m really looking forward to that,” he said. “It’s good to see Jeff back. For two weeks there, I definitely missed him.”

Of course the personnel may be the same but the venue will be different. Tynes said he has not yet kicked in the New Meadowlands stadium, but he’s heard a few things about the place. Not all of it is comforting for a kicker.

“I heard it’s windier than the Meadowlands,” he said with a pause for effect. “Great.”

Tynes noted that he missed only one field goal attempt at home last year.

“We should have a home field advantage,” he said. “I did hear, though, that it was windier than the Meadowlands and that was on a still day. Someone went over there and said it was a pretty still day and it was windier than the Meadowlands.”
 

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