The first practice tapes did not please Tom Coughlin a whole lot, which is understandable, because head coaches often see the bad before they see the good.
“Coach Coughlin, I know he’s always worried about those things,’’ general manager Jerry Reese said Wednesday. “I told him ‘Coach, we don’t want to peak too soon, not after one day.’ ’’
The problem with the 2013 Giants is not that they peaked too soon, it’s that they never really peaked at all, as the six weeks of anguish and agony that created an unfathomable 0-6 record short-circuited their season almost before the leaves began to change colors. That guaranteed a non-playoff season for the fourth time in five years, continuing a trend that prompted Reese to depart from his usual offseason course of action.
The term “free-agent spending spree’’ is not usually associated with the Giants, but Reese — who says the goal is always continuity whenever possible — had more salary-cap space than usual and marching orders from ownership to start winning again, now. Reese hit the open market hard, revamping the offensive line, the defensive secondary, running back, special teams and the return game.
“I think we’re going to have a really good football team, I’m very excited about the young players,’’ Reese said before the second practice of training camp. “We tried to build a younger team, a more physical football team that plays fast.’’
As he has more than once in the recent past, Reese pointed to the way the Seahawks revamped their roster before the 2013 season as an example of how massive turnover can lead to winning big.
“There’s no template on how to be successful,’’ Reese said. “We try to do what we have to do every year to put the best football team out there for the New York Giants organization and for our fans. Sometimes you can do it with the draft, sometimes you can do it in free agency, sometimes you don’t have to do much at all. We’ve done all of that. This time we had to go out and we lost a lot of players via free agency, retirement, injuries, stuff like that so we had to bring a lot of players in.’’
There’s been no change at quarterback, where Reese sees the 33-year old Eli Manning — the second-oldest player on the 90-man roster, behind only kicker Josh Brown — as the player he was in leading the Giants to a pair of Super Bowl triumphs and not someone in regression after leading the NFL in interceptions last season with 27.
“I expect nothing except for him to bounce back and be the Pro Bowl- caliber football player we know he can be,’’ Reese said. “He’s still a young football player, all things considered, with respect to the quarterback position. We expect him to come back and be a leader and bounce back and not have some of the things that happened to him last year and be a dynamic football player for us.’’
Manning is entering his 11th NFL season, coming off his worst extended performance of his career, excluding his rookie year. There’s a new offense to learn, a new offensive coordinator in Ben McAdoo to get to know and three-fifths of a new offensive line to protect him.
Reese knows all this but still sees Manning as an elite player.
“Quarterback’s a little bit different, 33 is getting up there but it’s not like a running back at that age or some other positions at that age,’’ Reese said. “Quarterbacks don’t take the hits like a lot of other positions do so hopefully Eli doesn’t take the hits he took last year.’’
A year ago, Reese in his early training camp interview spoke of winning the Super Bowl again. A year later, he’s clearly still haunted by the 0-6 start that no one saw coming and everyone was powerless to stop from spreading like weeds.
“Obviously we did a lot of work in the offseason and tried to turn the roster over a little bit but there are plenty of guys here last year for that 0-6 start that have a bad taste in our mouth,’’ Reese said. “We’re just thankful to have the opportunity to come back and get that taste out of our mouth. We want to start fast this season and not put ourselves in a hole like we did last year.’’