What We Learned: Brian Daboll ‘pleased’ with wide receivers

4. Neal could return vs. Jets

Last week, Evan Neal returned to team drills for the first time in training camp. The third-year tackle, who was working his way back from last year’s foot injury, has been slowly ramped up as he inches closer to game action. While he is still unsure if Neal will play against the Jets on Saturday, Daboll hopes the young tackle will be able to suit up.

“Yeah, it’d be good,” the head coach said about Neal potentially taking the field in the preseason finale. “We’ll see how he does at practice today. We ramped him up a little bit more yesterday. Talked to the trainers. We’ll do what’s best for the player and for us.”

Since returning to team drills, Neal has looked strong in pass protection. The 6-foot-7, 340-pound tackle performed well during team drills against the Jets on Wednesday, which his head coach said was a valuable step in his recovery.

“He did a good job,” Daboll told the media. “Coming back, I’m not saying D.J., but he’s had a long layoff too, so being able to play and compete against another team, it was important to get him those reps. Hopefully, we’ll see him in the game.”

5. ‘You want to try to attack all areas of the field’

In last weekend’s game against the Texans, quarterback Daniel Jones threw four passes that went at least 20 yards in the air, according to Pro Football Focus, two of which he completed. In his six games last year, Jones completed the same number of 20+ yard passes. He only attempted 12 such passes all season, and the maximum number of attempts he had in one single game was four.

The fact that Jones threw four passes that deep down the field in just one half against the Texans goes to show that the Giants are not going to be afraid to take some deep shots this year. Doing this should help open up the rest of the field for the offense, which should create a more balanced attack.

“Anytime you want to try to attack all areas of the field,” Daboll told the media. “I think there were 323 plays of 40 yards or more last year in all the games. So that accounts for less than one percent of the entire season, 0.9 percent exactly. So, you have to do a good job of threatening the vertical part of the field. No question about it. But you also have to be able to sustain drives. Anytime you can hit a big one, usually you’re going to have an opportunity to get some points on the board. And we’ve actively been doing that throughout OTAs and camp of pushing the ball down the field. But, again, you have to make the right decision when you’re playing quarterback. So, if they’re all playing deep and there’s a throw to Wan’Dale where you can gain 15, 18 yards on a run after catch, so be it.

“But definitely threatening the deep part of the field, intermediate, short, horizontal, that’s what you want to do offensively is to try to create as many mismatches as you can, whether it’s zone and you flood zones, whether it’s man-to-man and you’re using different type of plays, but trying to attack all areas of the field versus the defense to try to make it as tough on them as you can.”