This mandatory minicamp will come and go without three Giants rookie draft picks doing much of anything. That’s not good news for linebacker Clint Sintim, tight end Travis Beckum and tackle William Beatty.
All three might be raring to go on Aug. 3, in time of the first training camp practice up in Albany. They better be. Already, hamstring problems caused them to miss valuable work on the field during the organized team activity (OTA) sessions and the three days of the mini-camp that ends today.
“We’ve been looking at a couple of young guys who have been out forever,” coach Tom Coughlin said yesterday. “Why they’ve not progressed to the point where they can come back . . . part of it is because there’s such a short window to work with them and when they miss that amount of time it hurts ’em.”
History is filled with rookies who miss time early and never recover. The Giants would like to believe Sintim — a second-round pick — in his first year can be a core special-teams player and perhaps a pass rusher in certain situations. They would like to believe Beckum can pick up enough to catch a few downfield passes as an H-back.
This is a learning, developmental year for Beatty, but he won’t get much better if he doesn’t practice.
“The guys who have not participated, they’re the guys they don’t have the pressure on them, except for the classroom, to perform,” Coughlin said, “and it’s not as good as it could be.”
*
Coughlin holds a “team-bonding” event every year before the start of training camp, and this year’s happened to be last night’s Yankees-Nationals game.
The team went through minicamp sessions yesterday at the Meadowlands, then headed to The Bronx.
*
The first scuffle of camp came when DE Dave Tollefson took exception to being nearly sat on by TE Darcy Johnson. Tollefson tried to body-slam Johnson and got a punch in. . . . One day after excelling on the field, WR Sinorice Moss was off on the side after straining his hamstring late in Tuesday’s practice.
“I felt pain, it’s not something I want to feel, but it’s not that serious,” Moss said.
*
The Giants made official their partnership with Timex to call the new training facility the Timex Performance Center.
*
Co-owner John Mara said there’s been some movement as far as securing a naming rights agreement for the new stadium the Giants will share with the Jets, set to open in 2010. Three of the four towers at the new stadium now have corporate sponsors: Verizon, Met Life and Anheuser Busch.
The first event at the stadium will be NCAA lacrosse in April of 2010.
All the upgrades in the new training facility increases the likelihood that this could be the final year the Giants hold training camp in Albany, where they’ve been since 1996.