The Giants keep trying to hand Jerrel Jernigan their punt-return job, but the rookie kept fumbling it Monday night.
The third-round pick from Troy was credited with — and this is not a misprint — four muffed or fumbled punts in the 17-3 exhibition loss to the Jets.
Jernigan lost only one of them, but that’s still no way to win a role when your coach is famously obsessed with securing the football. No wonder Tom Coughlin sounded so exasperated yesterday.
“They were really poor,” Coughlin said when asked what happened on the four mishandled punts.
Coughlin admitted the Giants are now considering giving cornerback Aaron Ross or wideout Victor Cruz the duties instead. Domenik Hixon isn’t back in the mix yet because of injury concerns.
* Replacing Kevin Boss — one of Eli Manning’s favorite targets — with Travis Beckum at tight end remains a work in progress, Coughlin admitted.
Beckum failed to adjust his route in the first quarter Monday night, resulting in the first of Manning’s two interceptions, and was called out on that and on his overall preseason performance by Coughlin yesterday.
“It is just the consistency and the total package that is what you would hope would all come together,” Coughlin said. “We have to be confident that it will.”
* The NFL granted the Giants and the Jets a temporary five-man exemption to yesterday’s mandatory roster cutdown to 80 players, leaving the Giants with 85 players against the Patriots.
Among the moves to get to 85 were placing offensive lineman Adam Koets (knee surgery) and wideout Ramses Barden (leg) on the reserve-PUP list, meaning they won’t be eligible to play again until the Giants’ seventh regular-season game.