T-Rock's Take on the Giants

OK, just a few hits off the afternoon practice before I start working on my newspaper copy.
As always, click below for the 11-on-11 rundown.

Another warm, sunny day on the main field at Albany. Plaxico wasn;t practicing, and neither were the PUP guys, Osi Umenyiora or Danny Clark (both of them are on a one-a-day schedule). Zak DeOssie did practice this afternoon after not doing so in the morning. He's a one-a-day guy too. Sam Madison and Mathias Kiwanuka, who were also supposed to start with one-a-days, practiced in both workouts. Punter Jeff Feagles was also at the afternoon workout; apparently he spent the morning swimming.

Same starters on offense, including Domenik Hixon who I misidentified as Dixon in the morning report. On defense, the only changes were Chase Blackburn in at WLB for Danny Clark and Dave Tollefson at DE for Osi. The second unit had Kenny Phillips and Sammy Knight at the safeties. That may change for both of them within a few weeks. It also had the numericall convenient linebacking corps of No. 52 (Tank Williams), 53 (Bryan "The Blogger" Kehl) and 54 (Jonathan Goff).

I liked what I saw of Kenny Phillips, but what else is new. Twice in 11-on-11s he was able to come up and sniff out an end around. The first time it was Steve Smith who tried it going from left to right, and then later Manningham tried it going right to left. Both times No. 21 was there within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage. Pretty smart play for a rookie on his first day at a full NFL practice. He even elicited a half-hug and a slap on the helmet from Spags.

They may not have noticed him last year, but the fans here sure know who Kevin Boss is this year. He made a nice catch on a pass from Manning, reaching down low to make the grab just above the turf and rolling over. The crowd went wild.

There were two gasp-worthy plays of the practice, denoted below by asterisks. The first one was a pass from Woodson to Sinorice Moss. Moss had his man, Darren Barnett, beaten by about 8 yards on a deep go route but Woodson lofted a floating, wobbling pass that forced Moss to slow down and allowed Barnett to catch up. Still, Moss alomst made a spectacular catch, reaching around Barnett and nearly pinning the ball to and catching it off of the defender's back. It fell incomplete.

The second play was towards the end of practice during the red zone work. On the second play from the 18, Manning gave a play-action fake and then chucked a pass in the back of the end zone for Toomer. Amani had beaten James Butler on the route, took a hit (more of a shove given the shells the players were wearing) from Michael Johnson, and managed to hang onto the ball while fully extended and apparently keeping his feet in bounds. That play is marked below by two stars, but it was a four-star play.

Manning threw his first interception of training camp when he tossed a pass intended for Steve Smith down the right sideline. Smith stopped and cut back for the ball but Manning threw long and R.W. McQuarters was there to pick it off.

The only injury of the camp I've seen so far was this afternoon when rookie Nate Robinson appeared to twist his knee in 11-on-11s. So already, the Giants are ahead of the Redskins in terms of their first day of work.

UPDATE ON ROBINSON: The Giants are saying it was a hamstring and not a knee.