On the first day of August — the first day of Giants training camp — defensive coordinator Perry Fewell said he was looking for a “quantum leap” out of safety Kenny Phillips, who last year returned from microfracture knee surgery and was not the same dynamic player they hoped they would see.
With camp and the preseason gone and the regular-season opener only days away, Fewell said he’s still waiting for Phillips.
“Not the leaps that I wanted to see,” Fewell said yesterday. “I am hoping that he will grow and continue to grow for us but I looked for more than what we saw in the preseason.”
Asked why Phillips has not emerged as anticipated, Fewell said there’s a shared explanation.
“I didn’t always put him in those positions to see those things and maybe I was a little bit reluctant to say, ‘Well here, do this’ and he will just do that,” Fewell said. “Sometimes you just have to put the player there and get what you really want so that is probably a little bit on him and a little bit on me.”
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Fewell lost six players off his defense for the season and two of them, Terrell Thomas and Jonathan Goff, are starters. Osi Umenyiora isn’t ready to play yet and Justin Tuck‘s neck issue might prevent him from playing on Sunday. Before all the injuries hit, Fewell believed the defense could be a top-five unit in the NFL. “No doubt,” he said. He’s not saying that now.
“I’m not naive enough to know if I had all those guys we think we can really, really, really, really be a great defense,” Fewell said. “I still think we can be a really good defense though.”
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The players voted for the team captains and Eli Manning (offense) and Tuck (defense) were retained. Long-snapper Zak DeOssie (special teams) replaces Chase Blackburn, who is no longer on the team, although he did work out for the Giants on Wednesday.
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