The pass thrown by Andre Woodson went airborne with a tight spiral and seemingly hung in the air forever before rookie receiver Ramses Barden, never breaking his long stride, hauled it in after having gained one step on another rookie, cornerback Bruce Johnson.
It was an eye-catching play during yesterday’s Organized Team Activity practice and one that might never have been able to be completed last year or in any of the previous years inside the crammed practice bubble.
You see, this was a rainy day and the Giants went indoors to work. Their antiquated bubble is set to be taken down in the coming weeks and no one will shed a tear. At a meager 55-yards long, with a sloped roof that was too low by NFL standards, the bubble was not conducive to properly getting the kinks out of a long-distance passing game. It has been replaced by a state-of-the art field house that contains a full-length 100-yard field, a cavernous roof and plenty of room to roam on the sidelines.
The Giants believe their new practice home will help jump-start a deep passing game that last season, even with Plaxico Burress and Amani Toomer, was somewhat stagnant.
“In the bubble we always kind of had to worry about running a guy into the back of the end zone, it was a small area and you’re kind of scared to let some balls fly,” Eli Manning said.
Also during the practice, Domenik Hixon was the recipient of a perfectly-thrown ball by David Carr that resulted in a long completion and Sinorice Moss caught one deep on the left sideline from Woodson. The newfound freedom is appreciated.
“You would catch it in the bubble and you can’t stop on a dime so you would take another four or five steps and there was a possibility of running into the wall,” Hixon said.
With such tight quarters, defensive backs knew they couldn’t be beaten deep.
“The bubble will give you a false sense of playing ball,” cornerback Corey Webster said. “You go out there in the bubble you know it’s less than a 60-yard field, the ball can’t go over your head. This gives us more to prepare for a game situation. The bubble, we’re happy we’re out of that and we get a real sense of how it’s going to be in the game.”
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It was another strong day of attendance, with 87 of 89 players on hand. The only two absentees were LB Danny Clark and DE Justin Tuck.
Clark, along with assistant coaches Tom Quinn and Peter Giunta, attended a memorial service for longtime NFL special teams coach Frank Gansz Sr., who passed away in April.
Tuck, who was not excused from the voluntary workout, had to attend to personal business.
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Coach Tom Coughlin said DT Fred Robbins — who this week disclosed on his Web site that the knee surgery he had this offseason was a micro-fracture procedure — is on schedule but offered no promise he’d be ready for training camp. . . . Speaking cryptically about himself, LB Antonio Pierce said of this season: “There’s going to be a new-look A.P.”