T-Rock's Take: Inside the Giants

Two players who had signed free agent contracts with the Giants failed their physicals and had their contracts nulified, terminated, torn up, shredded, or whatever other drastic action you can think of. They were TE Eric Butler and G Camell Stewart. Butler had just had his contract announced yesterday, so his Giants tenure lastes only a few hours -- more than yours or mine, but brief nonetheless.

That means there's even more room for tryout players to make an impression and get a ticket to Hollywood. Oh, wait, that's on American Idol. I meant get a ticket to Albany. I get Albany and Hollywood confused sometimes, they are so alike. Not counting the draft picks, I count 76 players on the roster (give or take a defensive end who is contemplating retirement). The maximum number of players is 80.

I'll keep the update from this afternoon's practice to one post, mostly because I still have to write my story for tomorrow's paper. Here are the highlights:

Jeremy Young was a quarterback out of Southern Miss this morning. This afternoon he was a receiver, leaving all of the passing duties to Andre' Woodson and Willie Copeland. Young also changed his jersey number from a red 5 to a white 8 -- a lesson to keep those receipts from Modell's for all of you who ran out and bought your Young jerseys today.

Young, by the way, made one nice sliding catch over the middle during practice.

WR D.J. Hall continued to look impressive. He's got good speed and good hands. He caught another deep ball this afternoon from Woodson.

RB Jerome Messam, our friend from Graceland (not in Tennessee but in Iowa) College, looked to injure his right leg when he was tangled up in a passing drill, falling down while running an underneath route. Messam looked really strong -- big and fast at 6-4, 248 pounds -- but as a tryout it's tough to make an impression while limping. Don't worry about him, though. Messam is from Canada, so his medical bills will be covered.

Kenny Phillips had a good interception when he picked off a pass that bounced off the hands of TE Dale Thompson.

Manningham went against Terrell Thomas twice in one-on-one drills. The first time Thomas had the receiver covered on a deep route and knocked the ball away. The second time Manningham was also covered but made a nice one-handed catch reaching back for the football.

Ten blog posts in about 70 minutes. Everything you need to know about the first day of rookie minicamp. I'm heading out right now for the afternoon preactice. No doubt it will amazing to see how these young players have evolved in a matter of hours.

Check back tomorrow for more stuff. I know it's a Saturday and you're not going to be sitting at your desk clicking here to take your mind off work, but feel free to stop by anyway.

It's only the first day, but already Kenny Phillips and second-round selection Terrell Thomas envision themselves as starters for the Giants.

Asked if he thought there might be a starting job here for him, Phillips said: "Well hopefully, but I am just out here to compete and if I end up being a starting safety thank God."

Thomas was more direct.

"Without a doubt," he said to the same question. "I know they have some great corners with Madison, Dockery and Ross, but why wouldn’t I want to come in here and start? That’s what they drafted me for."

One of the more interesting stories of the rookie camp, believe it or not, is a punter.

Owen Tolson is here as an undrafted free agent, just a few weeks shy of graduating from the USMA at West Point. He's in the same highly-publicized situation as Lions draft pick Caleb Campbell, meaning that if he makes the team he won't have to serve his full active miltary duty of five years. Rather, he'll spend time as a recruiter and have to put in two years in the reserves after his playing days are finished.

"It's just a different mission," Tolson said of the possibility of avoiding active duty.

So for Tolson, he could either spend the next few years thinking about the hang time on his punts or trying to knock enemy planes and missiles out of the sky in air defense.

In case you didn't notice, the Giants already have a punter. So the chances of Tolson sticking around after training camp are pretty slim. It's actually common for punters to spend a few years dancing on the periphery of the league before sticking with a team, but Tolson won't exactly have that opportunity.

"I know it's going to be a lot harder for me than some of the other guys to come back after a year or so because the Army may need me elsewhere," he said. "I’m fully aware that I need to make a good impression now, get some good kicks on film, learn from Feagles, better my game, and hopefully I’ll stick around."

Asked about his first day as an NFL player, Mario Manningham noted that he made his share of mistakes (on the field). When told that Coughlin had said he showed flashes, he seemed pleased, but said no one has a perfect practice their first time.

"You’re not just, on your first day, going to get it Johnny on the dot," Manningham said.

Manningham may mix his metaphors a bit, and even produce a few new ones we didn't know about, but he looks to have all the skills that were promised on the field. In the end, he can come up with as many malaprops as he wants if he produces.

Kenny Phllips is wearing No. 21, a jersey he had asked for but wasn't sure he would get until he showed up for camp this week. It's a little strange to see someone wearing 21 other than Tiki Barber, but Phillips said he's doing it to honor fellow U. of Miami product Sean Taylor, the Redskins' safety who was shot and killed last year.

Phillips said he never met Taylor, but knew enough about him to want to honor him by wearing the number. In college, Phillips wore No. 1.

He worked out with the team yesterday!

In all the excitement over the future Giants, I nearly forgot to blog about the (perhaps) current one who is on everyone's mind.

The retirement-mulling defensive end was at the Stadium and had a conversation with Tom Coughlin.

"I had a chance to visit with him a little bit," Coughlin said. "But there is still no, he hasn;t said anything about what his plans are."

As for when a decision may come, Coughlin joked that it was the 4,000th time he'd been asked that (I'd take the over on that estimation, by the way).

"Basically, when he decides that, his term for it is, 'Whatever decision I make I know I am not going to change my mind so therefore I want to be right.'"

Still, it's seen as a pretty good sign that he was here with the team yesterday and that he had a chat with the coach.

Andre Woodson said the reality of being an NFL player hit him on the airplane coming to New York last night. Having never visited the Big Apple, he looked out the window on the approach and saw the glistening lights of Manhattan, the shyscrapers beckoning him to their concrete delight. Very nice. Strings of "Rhapsody in Blue" no doubt simmered in the background.

His real introduction to NY came this morning when one of the first questions he was asked during his media session was about the interception he threw on his first 11-on-11 pass. He laughed it off a bit. It was pretty clear that Woodson struggled -- tryout QB Willie Copeland seemed to have a better practice, for what that's worth -- but to be fair it's hard to judge an offense on the first day. And as practice progressed, he did improve. He even threw a nice long ball to D.J. Hall on a sideline go pattern for a sweet over-the-shoulder grab. Come to think of it, that was a better play by Hall than Woodson.

Woodson did make his calls at the line of scrimmage with authority. So he's got that going for him.

And so are two of the Giants linebackers. Had a chance today to talk with Bryan Kehl (pronounced "keel" as in even) and Jonathan Goff, the subjects of my camp preview article you may have read.

Both are interesting guys, and both looked good on teh field. The Giants had Kehl playing strong side linebacker, which he said was an adjustment coming from a 3-4 system at BYU. They had Goff in the middle, calling the defensive adjustments. He was very soft-spoken when talking with the media, but said he tries to be as communicative as he can be on the field.

Kehl said he and Goff hit it off immediately, and they looked pretty good playing side-by-side this morning. Each of them had an interception in 11-on-11 play. Both of those guys studied engineering in college. I wonder if they have any interest in the big Erector set just outside the building where the new stadium is being constructed.

... sometimes you're Tim Bugg. The tryout long-snapper had the biggest (and worst) hit of the practice when he clocked returner Willie Idelette during a slow-motion punting drill. The idea was for Bugg to cut in front of Idelette during the special teams exercise, but instead, Bugg made contact and sent Idelette flying cleats over helmet.

Oops!

By the way, the players wear only helmets and jerseys during the practices. They won't get into pads for a while. Not until the weather gets much, much hotter.

In the interest of driving up my total number of posts, I'll break all of the insights and notes from today's minicamp into individual headlines. Up first -- some thoughts from head coach Tom Coughlin.

"Back to the humility this morning," he said after watching the un-Super Bowl-caliber practice in the bubble outside Giants Stadium. "It's a humble start, a slow start."

Of course that's what he expected. The players had one meeting this morning and then spilled onto the field with all the precision of marbles in a wok (I tried to use that visual in my story for today's paper, but it was cut so now I'll use it here).

Coughlin also said he was impressed y first-round pick Kenny Phillips at safety and thought that WR Marion Manningham showed "a couple of flashes."

After practice the Giants draft picks and other players were paraded for the media. Before they arrived some from the PR staff began hanging signs on the wall showing where certain players would be standing or sitting. As soon as the sign for Mario Manningham went up, about 20 media vultures swooped in to surround the chair where the troubled receiver would soon be landing.

Yes, I was among the vultures.