The play that rather suddenly ended Thursday’s organized team activity practice came on a route Rueben Randle would have run last season in Kevin Gilbride’s offense — sort of. Where the old offense called for the route to be run at 15-18 yards, Randle said in Ben McAdoo’s system the route is run at 10-12 yards.
Get used to it. There will be plenty of shorter routes in the new system, prompting Eli Manning to get the ball out of his hands more quickly, supposedly allowing for the playmakers to get the ball and run with it more frequently.
“To see that come out the way it did was pretty exciting,’’ Randle said.
It surely stirred the offense, as they got on and off the field on the very first play of the two-minute drill. Manning spotted Randle on the right sideline and as the ball was in the air, cornerback Travis Howard leaped and nearly got a finger on the pass. Once Randle secured it, safety Nat Berhe arrived too late and Randle sped up the sideline, outrunning safety Ross Weaver for a 70-yard touchdown to end the day.
“We always try to do that,’’ said Randle, who steps into the starting role created by the departure of Hakeem Nicks. “When we get in the huddle we know we got two minutes, we try to make that first play our impression and today it happened to be me.’’
First-round pick WR Odell Beckham Jr. continued to sit out with what he calls a slight hamstring tweak.
“[I’m feeling] a lot better,” Beckham said. “I was running around, running routes and dancing in the locker room, so I feel pretty good.”
Beckham, a former soccer star — he played for a premier U-14 team when he was only 11-years old — said soccer is his “first love’’ and he will be tuned into the World Cup.
“My coach actually tried to get me on the national team when I was like 13 or 14,” Beckham said. “But to do the soccer thing, you really have to go overseas and stuff like that, and it was a decision at a young age that I really didn’t want to leave my family. It was kind of one of those things that I had to let it go even though I still think about it to this day.’’
LT Will Beatty, coming off a broken leg, remains out and won’t be ready for next week’s three-day mini-camp. Coach Tom Coughlin said “on paper he wasn’t scheduled to go until training camp’’ and that remains a realistic return timetable. … RB Peyton Hillis has been sidelined by a strained muscle. He hopes to be ready for the mini-camp.