May 28, 2009
Up until Wednesday, the rookies had just been lifting and meeting on their own. Now, because of the OTA’s, they have started to lift, practice, and are in the meeting rooms with the vets. It’s and exciting time for them. I remember what it was like to be a rookie just stepping in. Every NFL player had that experience and has been through that situation, as rookies or free agents.
It’s nice to have guys coming in hungry. As a Giants player, we have a lot of faith in Jerry Reese and what he’s doing upstairs to help us win games and go back to the Super Bowl.
The fans and media worry a lot about our wide receivers, and it is tough to lose a player like Plaxico Burress, of course. But we’ve got guys who are hungry and are excited about getting the opportunity to play.
Bringing in Hakeem Nicks as a first-round pick is exciting, he’s a tremendous guy and tremendous athlete. We have the same agent so I know that he’s already found a place to live so he can stay here all summer and catch passes and run routes with Eli. It’s awesome to see a guy with the intensity and dedication. He can make a splash right away.
Steve Smith is a player who has made big plays for us and we just got a glimpse of what Domenik Hixon can do last year, he’s just coming into his own and should get a lot more playing time. Sinorice Moss and Mario Manningham are also players look to get into the mix. And even though he is a tight end, I see Kevin Boss playing a big role in our offense this year. Best thing about all of these guys is that they are still young and have tons of potential.
I have a lot of confidence in the wide receivers we have, it is definitely not a problem spot for us. I know we’ve got the pieces in place to have a successful offense.
Off the field this year I’ve gotten very involved with Project Sunshine. Project Sunshine is a nonprofit organization that provides free educational, recreational, and social programs to children facing medical challenges and their families. Project Sunshine serves 60,000 children each year in 150 medical facilities. It’s an unbelievable organization. To learn more about this terrific organization visit www.projectsunshine.org. Comix, the comedy club in New York, got in touch with me with the 12 Angry Mascots through my management firm, PR PR, and said if I did some comedy with them, they would donate profits from the night to Project Sunshine.
So I did it. Every once in a while I think you have to try something new, challenge yourself by going outside the box. But more importantly, I was doing it to raise money for charity. Click on "videos" here on my site to check it out or click HERE.
I was more nervous than I have been with most things in my life, because there’s nothing worse than watching a comedian bomb. A lot of the sketch was improv, and I had a great time doing it. I’m not looking to become a standup comedian or an actor, I’m a professional football player. But it was fun, people laughed and thought it was funny, and it was for charity.
So all in all it was a win-win. What I couldn’t believe was how fast the buzz spread on the web. I did it last Wednesday, and by Thursday night and Friday morning people were calling me, it was on NFL Live, it was just crazy.
Sure, I poked a little fun at Brett Favre, but let me get it straight that I love Brett. I doubt there will ever be another quarterback like Brett Favre, a guy who sold out each and every game for his love of the sport. I mean, who didn’t love watching Brett Favre play football?
I hope everyone knows that the joking about him was done in the spirit of an NFL locker room, where we joke about everybody and play pranks on everybody.
Dave Diehl is the starting left tackle for the New York Giants. His blog for www.playerpress.com runs at www.davediehl66.com. Find him on Twitter as davediehl66.
Written By Dave Diehl
January 9, 2008
This is why we work out so hard in the off-season. This is why we run, lift weights, have training camp, go through everything we go through. Everything we do as an NFL player is to get to this point, to get the opportunity to get back to the Super Bowl.
To hold that Super Bowl trophy was a feeling like no other, and the only way to get to hold it again is to take care of business and that starts Sunday against the Eagles.
The Eagles are a good team, they know us, we know them. The team that goes out there and plays more physical for 60-plus minutes, and lays everything they have got on the line is the team that’s going to come away with a win and continue their season. I don’t want the season to be over. We want to keep playing.
It’s win or go home at this point, and I have a lot of confidence in what we’re doing right now.
The Eagles beat us last game but that doesn’t matter now. It’s all about the now. The present. It’s all about this game, and the postseason is completely different than the regular season because everyone has to play up to the best of their ability on every play.
You leave it all on the field because that’s what it takes to win these games, and if you don’t you won’t be on the field again until next season.
Playing at home is a huge factor for us, we’ve been good at home. We want to get off to a fast start, get a big play to get the crowd into it and use that as an advantage.
I know I said the last game against the Eagles doesn’t matter, but losing that game still left a bad taste in our mouths. When that happens you just hope to have a chance to redeem yourselves, and we’ve got that opportunity this weekend. Never let history repeat itself.
We’re expecting a slugfest, a real heavyweight bout. That’s what playing in the NFL is all about. You have to go in with everything you’ve got. There’s nothing better than challenging yourself against good players who bring it every week, and I’ll be facing one of those guys in Trent Cole. He’s been to the Pro Bowl, he’s one of the leaders of that defense and plays hard to the whistle. I am going to sell out each and every play because my teammates are depending on me and I know they are going to do the same for me.
In the playoffs the key is to sell out and hold all your blocks just a little longer, and finish every play because everything you do counts. You have to go as hard as you can every play, whether it’s holding a block, getting to the next level and making a block, whatever. If you don’t and something bad happens, you don’t want to look back with your season over and have any regrets.
I know our guys are going to lay it on the line. We want to get back to the Super Bowl. This team still feels like it has something to prove.
Dave Diehl is the starting left tackle for the Super Bowl champion New York Giants. His blog for playerpress.com runs at www.davediehl66.com.
I’m sure fans wonder what goes on with the team in between Sundays. So here are the basics of my work week during the season:
MONDAY
We go to our training facility and lift and run. We have to be done by 11:30 a.m. And the lifting and running are mandatory. We have a special teams meeting at 11:30 and then a full-team meeting at 12:15 where the coach gives out game balls for offense, defense and special teams from Sunday’s game. Everyone gets a grade sheet to tell you how you did in the game. If you got a knockdown, that’s on there.
After that we break down into offense and defense for meetings and go over all the good things we did, all the bad things we did, and as an offense we usually watch the first quarter of the game we just played.
Then we break down into position groups and watch film. After that we go outside and walk through our corrections, because you want to do that while the game is still fresh in your mind. We’re done by about 2:30 or 2:45 p.m.
Usually after practice on a Monday I will get a massage and acupuncture, sit in a cold tub, start getting my body healed up and feeling fresh after mashing all day on Sunday. The day after a game you’re sore, banged up, you just went out there the day before and for 60-plus minutes constantly smashed into people, so you do what you can to work on your body.
I think it’s important to try to have at least one night a week with my wife, and usually it’s Monday because practice is short. Our daughter, Addison, is 22 months old, and as much as we love her you still have to work on your own relationship. When you have a child there’s not all the time in the world to spend together, so Monday night we go out, either with other players and their wives or just the two of us. Eli will come with his wife, or the offensive line will all go out together, or my wife and I will just have a nice bottle of wine and go out for dinner and talk, just the two of us.
TUESDAY
This is the day off all through the NFL. I usually spend as much time as possible with my little girl, in the backyard on the playset. I’m so busy during the week, I don’t get home until about 5 o’clock and she goes to bed at 8:30. That gives me a very limited amount of time to spend with her, so Tuesday I spend as much of it with her as I can.
WEDNESDAY
We get to the facility and the offensive and defensive lines lift at 7 a.m.
At 7:45 there’s a special teams meeting with the kickoff group, kickoff returns and field goal units.
At 8:25 we have a full team meeting where we’re introduced by the coaches to the team we’re going to play on Sunday. Coach Coughlin runs this meeting, he runs down the other team’s personnel and tells us what they do well and what they don’t.
Then we break into offense and defense for meetings. As an offense we go over what fronts they run, the different packages they do. Another coach goes over their blitz packages and we install the plays for our running game and passing game.
Seattle was a 4-3 team, but this week we’re playing Cleveland and they’re a 3-4 team. A lot of the schemes are different, so they’re blocked differently. Plus, you have to show the defense something a little different every week so you don’t show all of the same tendencies.
Even though defensive players aren’t as smart as offensive players, they will still eventually catch on if you don’t change anything week-to-week. ;-)
After meetings we go out on the field and have a jog-through of what we’re going to do. Wednesdays we focus hard on first and second downs.
After the jog-through we come back in, get in our gear, put on our helmets and shoulder pads and have a full practice, about two hours or 2:15. After we come back in, hit the showers and eat lunch. We have a great big buffet line with almost anything you could want, cold cuts, chicken, steak, vegetables, lots of healthy foods.
Then there’s another special teams meeting to watch practice on film, and after that we break up into position groups again and watch more practice. It’s important to watch every aspect of practice on film because we have a scout team that runs the defense of the opposing team, stunting and blitzing like they do to give us a good look at what it will be like on Sunday.
THURSDAY
Thursday is a lot like Wednesday, except we focus on third downs. All the meetings are at the same times and we usually practice until about 4:15 p.m.
There’s no full team meeting, we go right into offense-defense meetings and go over third-down packages, called “sub-defenses” because there a lot of substitutions from the basic, or “base” defense, used just for third downs. You also have different packages for third-and-long.
There’s the jog-through, meetings, all the same except you’re always looking at third downs.
FRIDAY
Again, same times as Thursday and Wednesday, but on Friday you focus on short-yardage situations, third-and-1, third-and-2 and goal line. We focus on the “Green Area,” or from the 20-yard line and in. Most teams call it the “Red Zone.” We call it the Red Zone when we’re on defense, but the Green Area when we have the ball. That’s Coach Coughlin’s idea, because he says when our D is in there it means stop and when it’s our offense we need to go.
We don’t have any post-practice meetings on Friday, we try to get off our feet and start resting, get our bodies healed. I get massage and acupuncture again.
SATURDAY
The first thing I do is hop in the cold tub for 10 or 15 minutes to treat my soreness.
Then there’s the special teams meeting and we break down into offense-defense. We talk about how the game is getting closer, how things went in practice, and after that there are positional meetings and we watch practice from Friday.
We go out on the field for a walkthrough for an hour…we practice getting the kickoff team on the field, the kickoff return team off. Any type of situation you could come up with, we run through the script right then, third down, move the field, Green Area. Mayday, no time on the clock, rushing the field goal unit out on the field and the regular team off. We’re usually done by noon.
If it’s a home game, we stay in a hotel the night before the game. I won’t say which hotel, although it’s really not a big secret anymore because there are always like a thousand fans there. We don’t have to be anywhere until 7:30 p.m., which in Coughlin time is 7:25 p.m., for a special teams meeting.
Then we break down into offense and defense, watch the opposing defense some more, we watch tons of film. We talk about different plays, different problems we’ve had and other teams have had.
Then we relax until Sunday.
If we’re on the road, after a walkthrough at about noon we shower, get box lunches and fly out to wherever, where we have the same 7:25 p.m. meeting we would have had at home.
SUNDAY
Game day. If it’s a 1 p.m. game I’m up at 8 a.m. for a stretch, take a shower and meet the team for our pregame meal from 8:45 to 9:45. After that I go right to the stadium. I like getting there early, taking my time setting up my pads. I don’t like to be rushed before a game.
Then I plug into my iPod and turn on a playlist that I call Tunnel Vision. It’s got rock, rap, everything from Jay-Z to Led Zeppelin, The Doors to Metallica. I also listen to songs from “Last of the Mohicans” and “Gladiators” that get me pumped up.
For a 1 p.m. game we’re on the field at 12:10 for about 25-30 minutes, then come back in, meet with our offensive coordinator. There’s a team prayer and Coach Coughlin says a few words and we’re ready to go out there.
Dave Diehl is the starting left tackle for the Super Bowl champion New York Giants. His blog for playerpress.com runs regularly at www.davediehl66.com.
The NFC East is the best division in football this year, so it’s good to have a bye week to get everybody healed and recuperated, take care of all the nicks and scratches because we know every time we play a team in our division it’s going to be a royal rumble out there.
With two weeks off there’s a real learning process, the coaches breaking down plays ands schemes, going over what we did well in the first three games, what we didn’t do so well and figuring out what direction we’re going to go in. We evaluate every phase of the game, do whatever we have to do to make corrections.
This week is a great challenge for us playing against the Seahawks, they’re a great team with a great defense, they play extremely well together and do a good job of playing sound football. Their defensive line does a good job of tying up O linemen and freeing things up for the linebackers. Those linebackers fly around and make plays.
It’s exciting to play the Seahawks again because we lost to them in ’05 and ’06, and those five-hour trips on the way back with a loss leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
This time we can really do something to make up for it. We’re at home this time, so we want to get off to a fast start and do all we can to use our home-field advantage. We’ve got to play with energy, get a big play or a big hit early, get the crowd into it and let the Seahawks know they’re playing in Giants Stadium.
I’ll be going up against defensive end Lawrence Jackson, he’s a rookie, a first-round pick out of USC. He’s very young but he plays with a lot of confidence and has a lot of speed off the edge. He’s about 271 pounds and uses his long arms to his advantage, to keep the offensive tackle off him with leverage. He tries to create a short corner where he can knock down your hands, turn his shoulder and flip his hips and try to skin himself around the edge. He makes himself small so there’s not a lot of surface area to hit and uses his inside arm to cut the edge.
He doesn’t look like a rookie out there, he’s not lost. He knows what he’s doing and he has a plan, he plays very well in their schemes. As a veteran there are certain things I’m going to try to change up from last week. He’ll be watching me on film all week, so I’ll try to do little things differently to change them up and give him a different look. Part of being a veteran is that you have experience and remember things, and he doesn’t have that experience yet. It’s not a huge advantage, but I’ll try to change things up and try to confuse him.
Our goal, as an offensive line, is the same every week. We have to control the line of scrimmage so we can run the ball early, set a physical standard, go after them and play hard, play physical. Our thing is to play physical, get after them from the snap to the whistle, not allow the defense to get momentum, get hyped up. As a line that’s what we pride ourselves on. That opens up the play-action pass and allows us to take big shots downfield.
We also want to control time of possession and convert on third downs, do what we can to keep our defense fresh by keeping them off the field. Then they’re able to attack, and we understand what it means to have the defense fresh and constantly attacking. We know our defense is going to attack the QB, apply pressure and make hits.
We’ve had two weeks to prepare for this game and our coaches do a great job of preparing us and giving us a good game plan. Obviously, any team would in the NFL would rather have it later in the season, but whether your bye week is Week 4, Week 8 or 10, we’re professionals, and as a team we’re not going to complain about it and we’re going to prepare ourselves for battle each and every Sunday from here on out.
Dave Diehl is the starting left tackle for the Super Bowl champion New York Giants. His blog for playerpress.com runs regularly at www.davediehl66.com.
In our opener against the Redskins on Thursday I’m going to be going head-to-head with Andre Carter, and on some downs they’ve been going with Jason Taylor. He’s been hurt, but he practiced yesterday and as far as we’re concerned he’s playing. He’s a veteran, it’s the season opener for his new team, he’ll do whatever he can to get out there and play.
Carter is a real good player, he’s a veteran who’s been a starter since his rookie year in the league and he had 11 sacks last season. He’s got real long arms that he uses to his advantage, he can leverage you with those arms and he’s real good at keeping your hands away from his body. He is capable of shedding blockers. He’s good at forcing running plays inside to the linebackers. What better way to test yourself than against a great veteran who will challenge you every play?
Everyone knows about Taylor, all the Pro Bowl seasons he’s had and his Defensive MVP award. He uses his speed, he’s real athletic. He twists his hips and turns his shoulders, uses his outside speed to beat you around the edge and spin moves to change it up. He can get your balance and weight going outside, then come underneath and cut back inside.
All the Giants offensive linemen are excited for this challenge. The way it is, either you are going to get your job done or the guy on defense is, so I go out there and scratch and claw every play, just making sure the guys I’m blocking don’t disrupt our offense.
You want to control the line of scrimmage and time of possession, and you do that by keeping out of third-and-long situations, converting third-and-shorts. More importantly, when you’re near the goal line you have to put TDs on the board.
The Redskins have a great defense; they bring a lot of pressure and can do a lot of different things. That will be a real challenge for us on the O line, because if we do a good job of picking up blitzes it gives our offense a great chance to score.
The ’Skins have a veteran middle linebacker in London Fletcher who has played a ton of football. He does a great job of lining up the entire defense, you can tell he’s a smart, savvy veteran just by watching film of him putting himself in the right positions and reading formations. That’s having knowledge of the game.
They also have Sam linebacker Marcus Washington. He likes to blitz off the edge and create mismatches with tight ends and running backs. He applies constant pressure.
The Redskins are a team sound in their defense and in their defensive schemes, they don’t have a lot of guys who make mistakes.
One big advantage we have is that our entire offensive line (Me, Kareem McKenzie, Shawn O’Hara, Chris Snee and Rich Seubert) have been together since the start of last season. It’s great to have that continuity, coming back all at the same positions allows you to do more things as a unit. Blocking-wise and scheme-wise, there’s a comfort factor in knowing the guys next to you.
There are times on the road when it’s so loud you can’t hear the snap count, you have to play non-verbally. On the road during the playoffs we were tested and we did a great job. When a line is well prepared and each guy is comfortable with the guy next to him, you can become extremely successful.
We’re excited and want to prove that we’re one of the best groups in the NFL.
The way it is with offensive linemen is you always hear about the quarterbacks and running backs, not us. But that’s okay with us, we’re just a blue-collar group of guys. When the quarterback or running back has a great day, that’s enough for us.
Dave Diehl is the starting left tackle for the Super Bowl champion New York Giants, who open their season Thursday, Sept. 4 at home against the Washington Redskins. Dave’s blog for playerpress.com runs regularly at www.davediehl66.com.
I think as a team we’ve kind of gotten used to people doubting us, and this year they’re still doubting us. With Dallas loaded and Washington and Philadelphia getting better, we’re not even favored to win our division.
We’re the defending Super Bowl champions, but as training camp gets under way we’ve got a chip on our shoulder. Plus, we know we’ve got a bull’s-eye on our back and every team is going to try to knock us out. But that’s good, as a player and competitor in this league you wouldn’t want it any other way.
We set the standard for ourselves, and we all remember what the feeling was like of holding that Super Bowl trophy up over our heads. We want to get back there. We want to establish our own tradition for the Giants, and the only way to do that is to stick together through adversity, move forward and get better as a team.
Let the people say what they’re going to say, that’s fine with us. They said the same things last year. What matters are the people in our huddle, on our sidelines and in our locker room.
Lots of guys on this team got rewarded with big new contracts, and as one of those guys I can tell you that players want to prove what they’re worth. Anyway, the only thing guaranteed on your contract is the signing bonus, so you have to go out there and earn it. No one wants to be known as a bust, have people say that now that they’ve signed a big contract they’re lazy. That’s something about the mentality of a football player, week-in and week-out you want to go out there and prove that you’re the best, you have to go out there and earn respect.
For me, I go out there every practice and work on getting better. Last year was my first at left tackle, so I know that I have room to improve and I have to work even harder than last year to be a better football player.
After Michael Strahan retired, a lot of the media said we would have trouble replacing him as a leader. Michael was a tremendous leader on this team, he had a tremendous career and was a Hall of Fame player who was vocal and talkative. But on the defensive side of the ball Antonio Pierce has always been a guy who was a leader, he’s always been vocal and in training camp so far he’s stepped up his leadership role, just like he did last year.
It’s tough losing a guy like Michael Strahan, but Antonio leads by example and guys respect that and respect him. They know what he stands for.
We’ve got a lot of guys who have played a lot of football, veterans who have done a great job rallying around each other and getting the team ready to play.
Eli is one of those guys. We believed in him from the get-go, he works tremendously hard, he’s a guy who’s never satisfied. I see him going out after practice to throw more balls, making sure he gets it right every time. We know he’ll do whatever it takes to help this team win.
It’s crazy how people talk about Eli. When things are going great, everybody says how cool and collected he is. When things go bad, everybody says he doesn’t have enough fire, no “it” factor. But he’s always the same guy, no matter what.
And whatever people say, Eli really stepped up into a leadership role. He’s not a big rah-rah guy. You can’t fake that, because these guys will know right away that it’s phony. With Eli, he’s the leader of this offense, and when he says something everybody listens because they know it comes from the heart.
To wrap it up, nobody is satisfied after winning the Super Bowl last year. We’re in the best division in football with the Cowboys, Eagles and Redskins. Each game is a rivalry game, it’s huge and the tradition goes back way before we were born. It’s always a dogfight against those teams, you throw the records away and slug it out, last man standing wins.
Those are the best games in football.
Here in training camp we know you either get better or worse, you never stay the same, so we’re working hard to get better. Last year was a great year, but nobody is satisfied.
There’s a lot of tradition when you wear a New York Giants helmet.
Dave Diehl is the starting left tackle for the Super Bowl champion New York Giants.
His blog runs regularly at playerpress.com.
It’s always tough to lose a guy like Jeremy Shockey, he’s a tremendous player and a hard worker. He’s a guy I hung out with an awful lot since I first got here, and it’s kind of hard to deal with that he’s gone.
I wish we still had him but unfortunately these things happen, the NFL is a business and the team tries to keep the core guys together, but whether through trades or free agency guys come and go and you just have to adjust on the run.
I think it was a combination of things that caused this situation. First, unfortunately he got hurt. A football player never wants to be on the sidelines, you want to be out there contributing. Especially someone like Jeremy who has the mental attitude that he always wants to be on the field, always wants the ball in his hands. He’s a tremendous competitor and I think us winning the Super Bowl without him played a part in it. It was tough on him.
I think the media played a major role in him being disappointed after the Super Bowl. The media reported that people were saying that the Giants won without him so we’re better without him, we should trade him. All those things really upset him, and it got to the point where I think he was unhappy with the situation and just wanted to be somewhere else.
Just for the record, I never once thought we would be better off without Jeremy and I wish he were still here. There are no hard feelings among any of the players. I hope for the best for him, and I know he’s going to go to New Orleans and bring a fireball to that offense.
The media in this town can be hard to deal with. This is New York City, the media capital of the world, and Jeremy is an emotional guy and I feel like a lot of the criticism of him just built up. That’s something that as a player you try not to let happen, you try to move forward, but it’s hard sometimes.
That said, I think Kevin Boss will step up as our tight end. He works extremely hard and he stepped in last year when Jeremy was hurt and did a great job. He’s dedicated, a blue collar guy who wants to be a good player and help our football team win games, and it’s exciting to see that from a young guy. He and Jeremy are very different guys, Boss is more quiet, he just goes out there and does his work.
Kevin is really excited about his opportunity, he’s a big guy who can catch the football and I think he can learn to block like Jeremy. Most tight ends can either catch or block but not both, but with Kevin he has worked tremendously hard to improve on his blocking in the running game.
As for Jeremy in New Orleans, personally I hope for the best for him. He’s a friend and I spent a lot of time with him, so it’s weird not having him here at training camp. I feel like my relationship with him has not changed, and when I run into him I know it will be just like it was when he was here.
Dave Diehl is the starting left tackle for the Super Bowl champion New York Giants.
His blog runs regularly at playerpress.com.