Takeaways: Giants hit ‘Turbo’ button; Dane Belton walks off with INT

After practice, Nabers revealed that coach Brian Daboll asked the rookie what play he wanted to run before his big play.

“Dabs asked me what play I wanted to call, and I said, well, let’s throw a go ball,” Nabers said. “And Daniel came up to me, like, what do you want, you want to check out of the press? I said, nah. I said, off press, just throw it up. He was like I got you. The chemistry showed.”

Nabers added, “It shows how much trust (Daboll) has to give me the ball in open space or just let me run any route I want. So, to have that, as a head coach that’s got trust in you when you come into the third day of training camp, they try to understand how good of a player I am. For him to just ask me what kind of play I want and for him to call it, it shows how much trust he has in me.”

Before practice, Daboll praised the work being done by wide receiver coach Mike Groh, who was one of the stars of the most recent episode of “Hard Knocks: Offseason with the New York Giants.”

“I tell you, Mike has done a fantastic job here these last two years,” the head coach said. “He meets all the time with Hyatt. And Hyatt has really improved since he’s been here. It’s a different system than he came from, which is for most people. But he has put a lot of time, effort, and energy into improving his craft. And it shows up. He might not get the ball in certain things, but his routes, his understanding, his play speed. You can be fast, but sometimes not play fast when there’s a lot of things going on and he has really improved in that area. Had a really good OTAs. And I like the receiver room we have. Hyatt’s been good. (Darius) Slayton has had a good camp these first two days. Wan’Dale (Robinson), Leek (Malik Nabers), and even the guys in the back. We talked about Rob (Allen Robinson), Isaiah (Hodgins). There’s good competition and look forward to seeing how it unfolds.”

A picture of Dane Belton appears when you enter “nose for the football” in your search engine. The third-year safety out of Iowa lived up to his reputation on Friday with a walk-off interception, jumping a pass aimed for the front-right pylon in a goal-line situation.

Belton started his career with a fumble recovery on the opening kickoff of his NFL debut. He has gone on to record four interceptions and recover three more fumbles in 32 games (685 defensive snaps), only seven of which were starts.

It’s a good sign for the safety room, which is currently practicing without rookie Tyler Nubin. The second-round draft pick has a calf that is “a little tight but it’s not long-term or anything like that,” according to Daboll. “We are just being smart to get through this first week, ramp up and hopefully next week we can get him back out there.”

As many people expected, the Nabers vs. Deonte Banks matchup was a major theme of practice for the second consecutive day. They set the tone right away again on Friday, with Banks blanketing Nabers to force an incompletion early in practice.

Cornerback Cor’Dale Flott recovered to knock away a pass intended for Nabers during team drills.

Outside linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux would have had a strip-sack after working his way around the edge.