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Giants training camp, 8/30: Blake Martinez returns, more take out

New York Giants fans can breathe a sigh of relief. The Giants defense, already reeling from safety injuries Xavier McKinney and linebacker David Mayo, had good news on Sunday when linebacker Blake Martinez returned to practice.

Signed in the offseason for the defense quarterback, Martinez missed training on Thursday and was excluded from Friday’s Blue-White Scrimmage. Coach Joe Judge had said he was “not too concerned” about Martinez, and now the veteran linebacker is back at work. Media on the scene said the only evidence of anything with Martinez was a thin wrap under his right knee.

“He’s completely healed, he’s ready to go,” said head coach Joe Judge. “It was good to find him with us.”

Other injury notes:

Cornerback Darnay Holmes, who suffered a “lower body injury” in Friday’s scrum, was back in training. Spencer Pulley, who missed a few practices last week, was also back on the pitch. Rookies Rysen John and Jaquarius Landrews were on the side.

Blue-White Scrimmage Examination

The judge said the players had “good energy and juice” on Friday and “it was like a game”. His main concern, given the lack of spring practice, shortened training camp and lack of pre-season play, is match preparation.

“I’m happy with the effort our guys have played. Obviously, there are things to correct and clean up, ”the judge said. “Our # 1 goal right now is to improve our football conditioning. To be honest our guys trained extremely hard, they did everything we asked them to. The reality is that there just hasn’t been an opportunity to develop full-length conditioning.

The judge was asked about the starting offensive by scoring only one basket in five practices.

“I thought they did a good job doing a few records together,” Judge said. “There are a lot of restrictions we put on the team in how we were to play the game and the pace of the half. This eliminates a lot of what you can do on both sides of the ball.

“We understood that as a coaching staff. We knew what we were looking for. I came out very encouraged.

List building

The Giants have just three practices and a 90-minute Bleu-Blanc Scrimmage before they have to define their initial roster of 53 players. The judge said on Sunday that the Giants as an organization spent about six hours on Saturday, a day off for the players, discussing the roster.

“At this point, there’s a lot that can happen. There are a lot of guys who have left strong impressions, ”Judge said. “We want to make sure that we use the time that we have left to give everyone a fair chance not to oversee someone’s abilities and make a guess too quickly.”

Offensive online play

The judge had several interesting things to say about offensive line play during the scrum. Here are a few:

  • “I thought Nick Gates had done a good job in the middle of driving the calls and getting everyone on the same page. I thought he was playing very hard.
  • “I thought the tackles were doing a decent job and there were other times our defense could mix different looks and build pressure.
  • “I thought [Will] Hernandez and [Kevin] Zeitler did a good job playing physically. It manifested itself with Shane Lemieux. I was happy with the way Matt Peart and Eric Smith played around the edges.
  • “Tyler Haycraft had a big load the other night, did a decent job handling it. Especially with the mind and the changes that our defense has given it with different looks. It’s still a key part of being the centerpiece, being the smart guy who gets everyone on the same page. “

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