The New York Giants will be playing their first preseason game in less than a week and there’s still much work to be done. On Monday evening, they will travel to Detroit to hold joint practices with the Lions before the two teams play one another on Friday night at Ford Field.
The agreement to have joint practices came this offseason between Giants head coach Brian Daboll and Dan Campbell, the Lions’ head man.
The two have a long-standing relationship going back to 2011 when Daboll was the Miami Dolphins’ offensive coordinator and Campbell served as his tight ends coach.
Daboll told reporters he hasn’t spoken personally with Campbell since they set these dates up but the two organizations have been in contact and have been coordinating.
“Once you get going to plan these, the coordinators are in communication to make sure the practices are the scripts,” Daboll explained.
“We kind of setup the scripts and what we want to try and accomplish in the practice back in June or whenever it was we talked. We will revisit probably this weekend or Monday just to make sure we are on point. What do they have injury wise, what do we have, do we need to cut something down, do we need to add more? Those are conversations that will take place but have a lot of respect for Dan. Done a great job. Go out there and have some productive days, that’s the most important.”
And what exactly are those ‘scripts’ he is talking about?
“It’s really not much different than the practices that you have, that you script out here,” Daboll said. “There is third down, there’s red zone, there is first and second down. There’s a bunch of different things, you just kind of put them together. Our sports science people talk to their sports science so it’s a collective agreement in terms of how we want to approach practice, the things we want to get out of it and practice the right way the best you can.”
No one is sure who will play on Friday and if Daboll intends to use any of his starters. That information will likely be determined midweek.
