Sean O'Hara learned how to do it from his best buddy, Eli Manning. So, Phil, every time you type in the word "yes"—
I can't remember exactly. "I got diarrhea" or something.
And you still haven't figured out how to change it?
I'm not even going to try. I don't give a damn.
You're listening to the Bleav in Giants podcast with two-time Super Bowl winner Carl Banks and the voice of the Giants, Bob Papa. Welcome to another edition of Bleav in Giants presented by FanDuel. I got two two-time Super Bowl champions with me: Carl Banks, of course, as always, and the MVP of Super Bowl XXI, Phil Simms, as we talk about the Giants and the Miami Dolphins. But Phil, I got to start things off with this: how's your texting going these days?
Oh, you're a funny dude. Yeah, I don't know who did it. I guess I'm going to have to live with it until I see Shaun O'Hara, or who did it? Was it Sean—
Yeah, I wasn't at the table, so it couldn't have been me.
Yeah. Well, tell everybody what happened, you know.
But I was not above that type of thing.
Well, here's what happened. We were in London a couple of years ago, and anytime Eli Manning is around somebody's phone—
Eli can change the language, and then you can't figure out how to get it back to the language. He could put all kinds of things in. And he did this to a member of the Giants' front office. I don't want to sell him out. But you could also change what words mean in the text, okay?
And Shaun O'Hara learned how to do it from his best buddy, Eli Manning. So, Phil, every time you type in the word "yes"—
I can't remember exactly. "I got diarrhea" or something.
And you still haven't figured out how to change it?
I'm not even going to try. I don't give a damn. I just text around "yes."
Well, those are the fun things that we did in Miami.
It was a lot of fun. And Carl, Miami is not going to be a good football team this year, but that doesn't mean anything. You still have to perform. No one felt bad for the Giants when the Giants struggled. And the Giants went and dominated the team in practice; they got more talent, they dominated them in the football game. But when you take a look at the competition, what are some of the things that really jumped out at you as far as the defense was concerned?
Wow. Just the effort, Bob. And I said it when we wrapped up the broadcast: the Giants' brand is physicality. That is their brand. Make no mistake about it; there's no ambiguity. Their brand is physicality defensively and offensively. But the things that really stood out to me: the defensive backfield play, Deonte Banks. I couldn't be happier that this man has found his happy place within this scheme. Last year it was what it was, and I said all offseason and even during the season that I would be shocked if a kid with his skill set would allow his career to be minimized and reduced to that of a punt and kick returner. I said he had too much talent, and I just felt like he wasn't going to settle to where he was last year. Now, I hear a lot of things were going on with him, be that as it may. We didn't know, and I can't speak on it, but I can speak on how he played last year and how he's playing this year. And that brand of physicality—you saw him making tackles, not tackles out on the edge. He's in the belly of the beast, throws a wide receiver off, and makes a tackle at the line of scrimmage. Another guy I couldn't be happier for is Tyler Nubin. We got glimpses of Tyler his rookie year, and then all of a sudden, you could see there was something there.
But there were the angles and things like that. He was, as a safety, taking bad angles. And let me just put this out there: Tyler doesn't like to be bragged on. He just wants to do his job. But I think it's worthy—if I'm going to point out when he makes bad plays last season, I'm going to point out when he makes good ones this year. And he looks so comfortable, like the center field play, the play that he broke the ball up downfield. I mean, he read it from start to finish. And that tells me he knew what the leverage was of his cornerback, and he knew that whatever that leverage was, it was going to lead him into the angle that he needed to take. Now, he needs to start catching those because he did make a lot of interceptions in college. But that is a level of comfort that Dennard Wilson has given these guys. He's given them confidence; they're confident in each other and the system that they're running, and they believe in each other. But when you see something that looks so natural with Tyler Nubin and you see what's so natural with Deonte Banks—because you look at him, right? And I said it last season, Deonte Banks is a big corner. I mean, he's a big somebody, right? And I was like, "Where's this? Release the beast." Well, every phase of what he did all throughout camp thus far is translating into games. I love what I'm seeing. But also what I love is that there's competition at every level. When we sat here in March, we didn't think they had the talent. And here we are. We have a system. Obviously, there are some new players in the system, like Newsome, but then Paulson Adebo seems to be a different player now. Just this whole group of defensive backs, where we thought that was going to be the weakness, could end up being a sneaky surprise to a lot of teams. Where if they were looking at last year's tape saying, "Oh, we can take advantage of this, we can take..." it's different now.
Hey, look, there's no doubt about it. Can you guys hear me?
Oh, good. Because here we go. Just look at my sheet here. Deonte Banks was the first guy I put on the film and started watching, and as I watched it, Carl, you said it: he looks big as hell running across the field. His effort, his tackling—I thought it was spectacular. You talk about this team, the one thing they have: tell me the offensive line, the running backs. Just watch every running back; they're running it like it's their last run for their life, like it's going to be over after I get this carry. And that shows the offensive line—tough men moving, making blocks. And Tyler Nubin, I saw him quite a bit this offseason in his training, and I was watching him run, and I said, "Man, I can't believe he is so fast." And I think struggling sometimes one year turns into a great asset the following year. This comes to me, and Bob and Carl, it's the coaches. Come on, that's what it is. They know when they're on the field they've got to let it all out, because if you don't, you might not see the field again. And it's true in the NFL: can you get depth on your football team? The Giants are loaded with it. Out of nowhere, I'm looking at them going, "Hell, they might be the deepest team in the NFL." And it's because they're going to play guys who are backups, and they're going to get the job done. And they're moving everybody around. You know, I'm not crazy about that because it really makes it hard to watch and see who's doing what. But yeah, offensive linemen from right tackle to left tackle—Boehm did that, I think. They played a team in Miami that, to say they're starting over, that's an understatement, man. Jeff Hafley, wow. Did you go down there and do an interview? Did you look at the roster? They had 13 draft picks, but we'll see how that works out. To me, when I watch them, I don't see anything standing out because they get overpowered. And my last thing real quick: we said it on the air. You look out there and I go, the Giants look like Giants,
And the Dolphins look really small.
And you know, I even had somebody from Miami going, "Oh yeah, we're behind, and we've got to get some big guys around here." And they went through the whole thing. But preseason, maybe one of the worst teams or could be in the NFL, the Miami Dolphins, but the Giants—Deonte Banks. Hey, the other thing is, I'm beating it to death, Bob and Carl: OBJ, okay? These corners they had, it's like he came out there and they go, "Oh my god," the fear, and they'd give him a damn cushion of 15 yards. Sometimes they'd give that cushion and OBJ was on a deep route, but when he got the guy close enough, he went around him like they were standing still. So yeah, I'm going to keep beating that one too, because it's a great story. He's making himself available to get catches, and we'll see. I would think he'll play some this week against the Jets, too, so we'll get to watch him.
Bob, I'm sorry, I just want to add on to what Phil said about the Giants being a big football team. I heard that a lot when we were playing. When you get off the bus and you look big, right, and you're walking through warm-ups and you look over, "Geez, those are big guys," and then the game starts and they play to that level, there's nothing better. So to beat up on Miami is what you're supposed to do, because if they struggled, then it would all be a whole other conversation. So they're doing what they're supposed to do. But yes, their brand is physicality. This is what they do.
When in doubt—as this used to be the regime when we would play, Carl—when in doubt, if we can't decide on which guy we're going to take, this one or that one, take the bigger one. And they did that with a few players. When we get back together, I'll tell you privately who they are. But man, was it a great decision just to go with the bigger guy instead of the other one who was fast and could make plays. His career was always about injuries, and the big guy, well, he played a lot of football for us.
And Dru Phillips, the way he responded off that penalty, forced the fumble. Newsome played well, Adebo played well, all of that. But I want to go to the offensive line because it's interesting with this Giants offensive line. Coach Harbaugh, in our production meetings, has talked about this offensive line and the depth that they have. They're going to probably have to get rid of some decent players. Right now they have three guys at center who could all be centers or backup centers on the team, but you're only going to keep two of them. And then you got Stinnie and you've got Ezeudu. But I want to talk about J.C. Davis, who was taken in the sixth round.
And look, he's gotten his turns in camp, but he gets his reps as a sixth-rounder, and they said, "Hey, let's see what this kid's got. We're going to play him at left tackle for an entire preseason game."
And he played left tackle for the entire game, and he was not a liability by any stretch. And then you think about Marcus Bowden, who was a fifth-rounder last year. When you can get quality players later in the draft like that, that's when you know you're building a stronger foundation.
No doubt of it. Hey, listen, watching Davis play left tackle, I went, "Well, I would just think he's been there his whole life," watching him. Really impressive. And they talk about depth, but you need it in the NFL big time. And it seems like in years past, the Giants' offensive line was always beat up—this guy's out and that guy's out. They might lose some starters during the season, which always happens, but they're going to have backups that can get the job done. And you said it right, Bob.
They got many backups on the team, as I watch this, and it's great, this computer, you get to see everything. I'm like, damn it, you better play your rear end off and do what this coaching staff is telling you how to play the game, otherwise you won't get back in. So we'll see.
The impressive part about J.C. Davis to me—and I'm sure as a quarterback, Phil, you'll understand this—he played an entire game. I don't know how many plays, must have been 60 plays or more. But he had no penalties,
And he did not—like his mental endurance. You saw physical play from him all the way down to the end of the game,
Right. It wasn't like as the game went on, and you could see Miami is just worn out, he just stayed at one tempo, very physical, and he was very sharp in terms of his mental endurance also. And I think that's important for an offensive lineman, because those big guys can make a few mistakes or start to lose their attention—the young ones, anyway. He was locked in.
Right. And I want to preface this: I'm going to steal a line from your head coach. We're not putting him in Canton just yet. But the point is that you have Marcus Bowden as your backup tackle who could play either side. He proved last year what his value is, and he's going to be an ascending player. What we're talking about as far as J.C. Davis is concerned is a guy that, if you're really banged up, now you're starting to learn about him as far as roster depth. He might be inactive for a lot of the games, but he's still going to grow as a player. And I think that's kind of what this team has done as far as building this line and coaching them up. I think it is really the most important part of all of this, isn't it?
Yeah, it is, of course. And so many things about that, and most of these things you're talking about, Bob, showed up in the game. It didn't matter who they put in there; they were all playing well, and probably should have. This was an opportunity to know that you can beat the person on the other side. And my last thing about this is Jameis Winston. I think I said it, we all said it: he was sharp as heck, man. He played big and he's got energy, and I thought he threw the ball really well. So the Giants got to feel great about that. And in this league, even this morning, hell, I was looking at some backup quarterbacks because I know they're going to get a chance to play, because it's just hard for the starters sometimes on an average or below-average team to stay healthy the whole year.
Just to follow up on that, Phil, most likely considering the depth that they have on offensive line and the question marks that they have at receiver until Malik Nabers is a full go, there's no way the Giants—because look, we're recording this on Monday. The first 53 comes in six days, right? I think it comes on Saturday after all the preseason games are done on Friday. So you're going to go to your first 53 then. There's no way the Giants keep more than two quarterbacks, right?
Oh yeah, they're keeping two. And just being honest, they might hit the waiver wire and look for another quarterback to go on the practice squad. Sometimes you don't have the time to try to really teach and get three quarterbacks ready to go, and that's one of the positions the Giants are kind of in right now.
Well, they're in a great position because they got two experienced quarterbacks.
With Jameis, he's the perfect backup. He's a pro's pro. He was very successful as a starter in the league. So it's not like you have a second-year quarterback and then a journeyman behind them. They've got two solid quarterbacks, so they don't need to add a third guy just in case.
The one guy that just continues to impress me, man, he just jumps off the film: number 52, Arvell Reese.
Oh, well, shoot. When I say their brand is physicality, it's been a long time since you've seen a linebacker as a thumper. When he meets you at the line of scrimmage, it's an explosion, and he doesn't sacrifice his body. He plays with the right pad level at contact. They just showed him a couple times with a fullback lead up in there—boom, blows the fullback up, still gets in on the tackle on the opposite hole. Watching this kid play, you just see he's a football player. It was kind of like he looks the part: tall, rangy, can run. But can he play? And boy, can he. I mean, he puts 52 on—I'm looking, and the comparison is him and Pepper Johnson both wear the same number and both were Ohio State linebackers. But the explosion is the same type of thing when Pepper used to step up in the line: boom. I'm not comparing the two players, but just the impact of what a linebacker should be. And man, he is the real deal.
Carl, everybody in the NFL would love to have that; that's what they want their linebacker to be. It doesn't get better: size, great speed—not good, great for the position he's playing—and aggressive. Everything: physical, there's nothing about him when you watch him. I watch him and try to grade these guys; after five reps, I just go to hell with it, he's going to play them all good. That's who he's going to be. The interior part of the D-line, the linebackers there, they got some depth and they're going to be able to cover up some things that go wrong with the front every once in a while.
Well, the front has to do some better things. Now, I saw some good things. You could tell that the emphasis on those guys that were playing from last game to this game, including their work with the Dolphins, is: hey, they got to be better now. They're going to continue to play Marcus Bowden because he needs these what I call pro reps, meaning not just the preseason where you get five series and then you're out. You're in for the game, just like with J.C. Davis, right? You're getting pro reps now; these are late-in-the-game reps. He did some really good things, and then there are some times where you can see fatigue got to him, right? And Alexander—look, I believe the kid's got a tremendous upside. He's got talent. He's long, he's explosive, he can move laterally. But in terms of what's needed for this defense, I'm not here to say, "Oh, bring him along slowly." The train's running. As Coach said, you're either on it or you're not. And so if you're out there, the expectation is to play to the level that they want you to play to. Like I said, I'm rooting for the kid and I think he's going to do great. But it got late in the game and he got knocked off his feet or slipped a few times. You can see the effort—just pro reps now. You got to get going, you got to sprint all the time, get your mind right. And I think at some point he's going to be okay. And if he's not, they'll find guys that can fill that position. I don't think he's going to be off the team, but the promise that he shows, he's going to have to live up to it, because they're just not going to take his word for it or our word for it and say, "Oh yeah, this kid's going to be okay." He's got to be okay now. The train's running.
Well said. Phil, last week when we were doing the live show from Miami and Carl and I were talking a little bit about what we saw in practice, I really want you to share with our fans your observations of watching Jaxson Dart. Because that's the storyline here going into year number two, trying to absorb this new offense led by Matt Nagy, the offensive coordinator, and then of course you got Greg Roman, you got Brian Callahan, you also have Tim Kelly, who was the interim OC last year. So you got a lot of people in the mix here as far as what they're trying to craft. But maybe share with the fans your observations, since Dart didn't play in the game, of what you saw in practice.
In practice, I stayed with him and Jameis almost the whole practice against the Dolphins, and he threw the ball not good—he threw it great. He really did. When he needs to, he can wind it up and throw the fastball, and also I think he's a really good touch thrower down the field. And his decision-making—the Giants quarterbacks, when you watch all this stuff, their decision-making has been really, really good. And so much of that comes even in the game: the effort, what's going on with the front, all this stuff, and it's making the defensive backs have to play. Even Miami decided, "Well, we've got to play more man-to-man because we can't hold up the way these running backs are just crashing up in there and gaining yards." But Jaxson Dart, hey, listen, I hope he plays against the New York Jets. And you guys have heard me say this and I really believe in it: you've got to put the guy under center in a game. There's going to be, I would think, a really good crowd at this game, and you get a chance to see the crowd. Bill Parcells would ask me this: "Do you want to play?" And I go, "Yes." I said, "I need to get under the center and look at the crowd and kind of make sure there's just 11 guys on defense." Because sometimes when you're a little rattled, you get up there and you go, "Holy Christ, they got guys everywhere." And it's real. And so that's what I want to see. Maybe that'll happen for him, maybe he doesn't need it. But man, even second year, I would love to see him get some reps against the New York Jets.
Yeah. And the fact that there's no joint practice with the Jets this week—the Jets have had several of them, the Giants had the one in Miami. If you look around the NFL, for the most part, other than Tennessee last night in their game where they did have joint practice with Seattle and they played their starters on offense and defense, most of the time the rule of thumb is if you have joint practices, the starters don't play, right? So maybe we'll see some of those guys play this week.
I want to ask you guys about Najee Harris, because he made a run in the joint practice against Miami. I think it was the twos and threes versus their twos and threes. But then I was on the field before the game, and I'm looking at his size, and I mean, he's not as tall as Brandon Jacobs, he's not as heavy as Brandon Jacobs—Brandon had him by about 15 pounds—but the physique and just how they ran him during the pregame. You know, when they're in the shorts and t-shirts running the route trees and stuff like that, they got the wide receivers running outs, comebackers, in-cuts, slants, goes, whatever; they go through the whole thing. Then the tight ends run their routes and the running backs. And they ran him on like a little stutter arrow route over the middle. And when I saw the force and the speed in which he caught it in full stride, I'm like, "Who the hell is tackling that thing?"
Him coming in—and going back to this again—it stayed with me how hard the running backs ran. And that's the one thing they keep preaching and I hear it. And with Greg Roman and Matt Nagy up there, and then of course now all these—
Running backs see Najee Harris, they know his—they got a reputation what he can be, and you know he is ready to show everybody where they can go by running the football, and he's going to get his chances with the Giants. Great pickup. And again, the effort, the toughness, and all that I've seen from the running backs in two games, it's been really good.
Well, about that with the running backs, you'll get a change of pace between Skattebo and Harris, but it ain't the change of pace that defenses are looking for. Like, they're not putting the finesse guy in either one. If Skattebo or Harris is in and the other one subs, the defense is still in for a very physical freaking time. And sometimes you say, "Okay, they got the big guy out now. We got this finesse guy. We know it is going to be a little different." Not with these guys. You're just going to get pounded. And Motor Singletary, if he's in the game, he's going to be just like that, too. His physicality isn't the same, but he runs physical. But between Skattebo and Najee Harris, you don't get a break on defense. It's not like they put the finesse guy in and they took the other guy out. Like, both of these guys, you better pack a lunch because you're going to be in a hard-hat game the whole game with those.
All right. So, that circles me back to the next question. Tyrone Tracy has been a nice player for the Giants. Obviously, his rookie season, he was fantastic. Had a couple fumbling issues last year. There was a lot of things. He was a little nicked up during the course of the year. But again, with a new head coach, a Super Bowl-winning head coach coming in, everybody has to earn their stripes. And we all know about the missed blitz pickup against Minnesota where Jaxson Dart took a big shot. I think there was another pass pro in that game in which he missed, but Jaxson didn't take a big shot, but it disrupted the play and I think it led to a throwaway. He was running the ball well. We know he can return kickoffs, but the fumble—I mean, I know it was wet. I know it was raining. But do you guys think that it's going to be tight for him to make this 53?
Well, one thing I noticed about him, he definitely runs harder and is a different runner than I saw last year. I mean, he's another one, and that's what kind of gets me going about that group. It's, hey, tiptoe in there, and you'll tiptoe right to the sideline. And yes, Bob, I think you're right. These kind of mistakes—that was a really simple pickup for him when they were playing Minnesota, really simple. And to make that mistake and let your quarterback get slammed, man, that takes a lot of confidence—whatever confidence that the staff has, the head coach—what? That hurts. And then fumbling the ball. I thought John Harbaugh said some pretty good things. The punch-out, he goes, "Hell, we lost three games in Baltimore because of that." And I think he said it that way. And you're right, there's the fumble. When that happens, too, man, that's a big deal. You can't preach that stuff enough: hold on to the damn ball, know what you're doing, don't make a mental mistake like not picking up the blitz, because those are ways to get yourself off the team.
Well, it's your job. It's like if you're a running back, ball security when they hand it to you, that's your job, right? The ball is wet; it's wet for everybody. Quarterback has to handle it, the center has to handle it, the running back has to handle it. If you're in on passing down, that means that they believe you are capable of making the right decision in blitz pickup. Now, all that being said, I've not known Tyrone Tracy not to be a smart blitz pickup guy, right? So, he makes that mistake, it looks awful right now. You're going in to score and you're having a hell of a drive. Boom, ball comes out, unforced error.
