ALBANY — Eli Manning won’t take his shirt off, ala Tim Tebow, and jog off the practice field for all to see. But he does think one of his teammates should pull a Tebow.
“I told David Carr to take his shirt off while we were running sprints after practice to see if he can get the same coverage,’’ Manning cracked yesterday on ESPN Radio-New York.
No, the Giants backup quarterback probably won’t do what Manning suggests, but it’s clear the two-time Super Bowl MVP has taken notice of the outsized attention the Jets and Tebow have received this summer.
“No, I am not jealous,” said Manning, who added he likes the quiet of Giants training camp in Albany, as opposed to the hubbub out in Cortland, where the Jets are receiving breathless round-the-clock coverage.
“Well I think this is about football,” Manning said. “Training camp for me is time to get the team together and go practice football. You think of training camp as time to interview all the football players but for me it is about practice. Every time you turn on the TV, it’s the Jets; ‘SportsCenter’ is camped out at the Jets complex.
“I think they are moving everything from Bristol [ESPN’s headquarters in Connecticut] to right there to their complex over there. That will be an interesting move.”
* A great catch and a fast-strike, two-minute drill had Tom Coughlin wanting more.
If this is what the Giants coach has to worry about, it’s going to be a smooth training camp.
Working in the two-minute drill for the first time this summer, the offense yesterday got the ball on its own 26-yard line with 1:26 remaining, trailing by two points and two timeouts to work with. Manning hit Domenik Hixon for 11 yards and, on the very next play, Manning let it fly as Hixon and cornerback Prince Amukamara ran with each other down the left sideline.
Amukamara had the desired inside position, but it was Hixon who jumped just a bit higher and competed just a bit harder, going up to make a leaping catch before tumbling down to the ground to complete a 45-yard gain.
On the next play, Ahmad Bradshaw ran the ball and the practice was over, with the starting offense having succeeded in moving into field-goal range, needing just three plays and 24 seconds.
“You’re looking for multiple two-minute-type calls, ball goes down the field in three plays and that’s your drill,’’ Coughlin said. “That’s not exactly what we had in mind. The first time you do it, you’d like to run some plays.’’
Coughlin wasn’t really annoyed, of course, but he gets ornery when his script isn’t followed. He was asked, playfully, if he would question Manning and the starting offense about scoring so quickly.
“They’d just look at me and say ‘What was the objective?’ ’’ Coughlin said. “Get it inside the 20.’’
Not only did Coughlin want to see the drill last longer, he also would have preferred Hixon wasn’t the player on the field to extend himself from a physical standpoint. Hixon is coming off back-to-back surgeries to repair his right knee.
“If I had scripted it I wouldn’t have done it that way. I probably wouldn’t have had him in there, you see him go down,’’ Coughlin said.
* Coughlin admitted “I don’t know what to believe” when asked about the prognosis for Terrell Thomas, the cornerback who last Sunday re-injured his right knee. The Giants have not backed off their initial finding, which stated based on an MRI exam, Thomas does have an injury to his right anterior cruciate ligament. The Giants never stated the ligament was partially torn but that was the strong likelihood.
An ESPN report Wednesday night stated based on an examination, — presumably by Dr. Arthur Ting, the California-based surgeon who performed both of Thomas’ previous ACL reconstructions — the belief is Thomas does not have a torn ligament and there is optimism he can play this season.
Thomas on Tuesday will get a third opinion from Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Ala.