Giants' 'rookie' coach John Harbaugh doesn't miss details at minicamp

NEW YORK — John Harbaugh looked up as the noise built to a crescendo on Saturday.

“Is that a normal thing?” the New York Giants‘ coach said. “Think you’ll have to speak up for me.”

Harbaugh, 63, was one of the rookies at Giants rookie minicamp this weekend, so to speak. The first-year New York coach is still learning how things work here.

Saturday was his first experience with planes roaring overhead to Newark Airport as he strained to hear press conference questions from local media at the Giants’ outdoor podium setup next to the parking lots of East Rutherford, N.J.

That’s something Harbaugh didn’t know about before Saturday. That now could be something Harbaugh puts on his list of what to change.

That’s what this spring has been: one constant flow of change to the Giants’ way of operating. Because the organization is paying Harbaugh $20 million a year to fix what he deems necessary and get this operation back on track.

It is therefore refreshing that the Giants’ new head coach by nature seems to move with a constant attention to detail. He doesn’t miss much, and he makes sure his team doesn’t miss much on the field, either, which is what matters most.

During a two-minute drill late in practice, quarterback Jeff Sims, a tryout from Arizona State, completed a deep throw up the left seam to wide receiver Michael Jackson, a tryout from Purdue, drawing the offense close to field goal range as the clocked wound in the final minute of a simulated fourth quarter.

Harbaugh, who spent a lot of Saturday’s practice at a distance from the players during individual drills, now walked directly into the middle of the offensive huddle.

Why?

“We were talking about the situation,” Harbaugh said. “So all of our practices will have situational elements. I mean, every play is a situation in football. But sometimes you can take a minute to say, ‘OK, let’s put this in perspective right now: We’re in a two-minute period. We’ve got no timeouts. We’re at the 50-yard line We need to get in range here.

“'Can we afford to have a penalty?” he continued. “If we catch the ball short, we want to get as much as we can, get down quick, get the ball back and do what? Get on the ball. We’re gonna clock it.’ Just kind of explained the circumstance we were practicing.”

This might sound like obvious coaching protocol, but this is not how the Giants were coached the past four years.

Their failures in critical and unique moments in games were directly related to the fact that they did not practice those situations at all or that they did not spend full speed time on making the micro-decisions that decide games.

Harbaugh insisted this rookie minicamp is intended to be more of a “rehearsal” than a “competitive” camp, but he is still in evaluation mode. He’s just evaluating the elements that he believes matter most at this point for his young players.

Specifically, for example, he noted that first-round pick Arvell Reese had not missed an assignment in two days while being asked to know several different checks at a weakside linebacker position that Harbaugh’s defense asks a lot from.

“I’m one of those guys who’d rather be seen and not heard,” Reese said.

The focus, humility and intensity of Harbaugh’s first draft class stands out in a great way. Reese, right guard Francis Mauigoa and corner Colton Hood all are locked in on playing well and nothing else.

“He’s old school,” Mauigoa said of Harbaugh. “He likes people who work hard. I’m gonna work my butt off to be up to the standard — and hopefully uplift that standard.”

Hood made the play of the day in the two-minute drill while lined up as the right outside corner. He closed downhill in zone coverage and ripped the ball out of running back Miles Davis’ hands with a physical hit after a completion to the left flat and took it to the house.

“I took it from him,” Hood said with a smile. “I gotta get paid, too.”

The young players seem to like how Harbaugh is teaching and relating, too.

“He coaches hard and wants his guys to be great,” Hood said. “He gives good feedback when you do the right thing.”

Third round receiver Malachi Fields, who had a bad downfield drop but made some good catches on slants over the middle, noted that Harbaugh has been helping rookies understand the new demands of this next level.

“He’s all about teaching guys the tempo of the league,” Fields said. “You’ve got to go full speed but remain under control.”

Harbaugh differs from former coach Brian Daboll also in how much music he pumps into practice:

None.

There was no bass thumping on Saturday, no one standing around having a catch and doing minimal work. The only sounds, other than the planes, were the sounds of the coaches’ voices teaching and the players making checks at the line of scrimmage.

And Harbaugh’s first version of the Giants beginning to take shape.

Zvada kicks off 'competition'

Undrafted Michigan kicker Dominic Zvada went a perfect 5 for 5 on field goals to close out practice, including a 55-yarder right down the middle on his final kick. Harbaugh said there will be a “competition” between veteran Jason Sanders, incumbent Ben Sauls and Zvada, and judging from Saturday’s results, the coach said, the competition has “already started.” Harbaugh, a former special teams coordinator, said Zvada has a “vertical swing pattern” that keeps his kicks mostly straight while in the air. And that’s why he thinks he can have success with the Giants.

Nothing soon on OBJ

Harbaugh said he has spoken to Odell Beckham Jr. three or four times in the last week, and that is still a wait and see situation.

“He’s in Arizona right now training, spending time with his son,” Harbaugh said. “The goal right now is for him to get as ready as he can be, and we’ll see where we’re at at that time. For Odell, we had such an honest conversation about it. It’s gotta be right for both parties.

“Odell wants to be the kind of player that can make a difference,” he continued. “I’m pretty sure he could make a team in the National Football League right now, but can he make a difference, and is it something he wants to do, and is his body gonna hold up the way he wants it to?

The Giants’ coach said “all those things are questions that need to get answered for anybody at that age.

“You know Odell, he’s confident,” he said. “He’s working hard, and he believes in himself. I think we’ll just play it out over the next month and into training camp and see where we’re at.”

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