The New York Giants are off on a road trip, as instead of coming home between road games in Miami and Los Angeles, they will spend this week in Tucson, Arizona, working out at the University of Arizona’s facilities.
Coming off a tough three-game stretch where they’ve scored 32 points (and just two touchdowns) and lost two quarterbacks, this trip may be more team-bonding than practice – and that’s possibly for the best, to some.
“I think it will definitely help with the chemistry throughout the team. Any time we get to spend time with each other and talk football and talk life, it's going to bring us together. So that's the one thing about this trip that's positive,” said cornerback James Bradberry.
“I don't think it's a bad idea to get away, spend some time with your team,” added Saquon Barkley. “It’s like a little college trip; obviously, you want to be with your family, but we can take advantage of this trip to relax, breathe, come together collectively, spend time with each other, and figure out what we've got to do better. I don't see any fault or any negative things that can come out of spending time together as a team, especially at this part of the season where we've got to try to make a run at it.”
That may seem like the opposite of what needs to be done – come Week 14, the Giants should pretty much have that “team bonding” philosophy underway – but as Logan Ryan explained, just because we’re three months into the NFL season and even further into team activities doesn’t mean the time has gone smoothly.
“We’ve had a lot of injuries and a lot of new people in there – the secondary today was completely different from the secondary three weeks ago,” Ryan said Sunday. “So we need team bonding. We have four guys playing four different positions just in our secondary alone. So it's been like that, a lot of moving parts this year. That’s football and every team deals with it, but we need team unity.”
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And, Ryan says, it’s a good chance for some folks on the periphery to get the full NFL experience.
“We've got a lot of guys on the trip. A lot of these practice players, these guys bust their butts every single day but don't get to come to the road games, don't get to be a part of that experience,” Ryan said. “They get to travel with us, and these young guys get to see what it's like to be a pro on the road and how you've got to pack up and go play in visiting stadiums.
So it's a good bonding experience for the youth of the team. And I think it's very important.”
There are, however, some difficulties for even the veterans on a trip like this.
“You want to hang out with your teammates, get to know them and build that chemistry, but you've got to make sure you take care of your body, too, because you're away from what you're used to and your routine,” Bradberry said. “So you want to make sure when you're away that you try to find ways to take care of your body, however that is. I think that's the biggest thing for me as a vet going away from New York or your home, just building a routine and make sure you stay on top of your body.”
“I think it could be great, just to get away for a bit; I mean, we’re in Tucson, and I don’t know what’s going on in Tucson, but we’ll be out by the mountains, looking over at Mexico, hanging out and getting ready to go to Los Angeles,” Ryan added.
The Giants’ next opponent, the Chargers, are 7-5 and coming off a huge win, so perhaps now more than ever, as the G-Men try to stay afloat in the NFC playoff race, getting the chance to
“LA played well (Sunday), so it’ll be a great challenge – but on teams I’ve been on in the past, this has been very beneficial, and that’s why we’re doing it: to get away from the noise a little bit,” Ryan said. “Training camp is really different in that we don’t go away, so this is an ability to free up our schedules and go watch the tape together, go do some bonding activities and go be tighter as a team because down the stretch, it really doesn't matter how much you care about each other. Those little things do play a difference in building team unit.”
No matter what, though, the objective is clear.
“We've got to win next Sunday,” Bradberry said. “That’s it, that’s our mood.”
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