Richie James fumbling two punts in Seattle was part of the Giants’ downfall in their last game before the bye, and special teams coach Thomas McGaughey may have a culprit in the issue: James’ sleeves?
“Probably the first thing he did wrong was wear cotton sleeves. It was kind of cool out, probably wasn't the best decision and that's probably on me more than anything else to tell him to take them off,” McGaughey said Thursday during his usual weekly media conference. “When you carry the ball, you want that ball firmly up against your body and don't want anything to make it slide or move while you're carrying it.”
T-Mac did give credit to Seattle’s special teams unit for James “taking a shot” on the other fumble, saying “when you get in traffic, you have to cover the ball up.”
But the sleeves didn’t help, nor did McGaughey failing to rectify the situation.
“The ball will slip. Anytime you have a regular leather ball up against a smooth surface and it's not skin, that's something that you don't ever want,” he said. “The ball will slip, and that's why you rarely see running backs have sleeves on. It was my fault. I should've told him to take it off. I'm normally all over that. It was my fault. I slipped on that one.”
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That said, any conversations McGaughey had with James about the situation weren’t negative, but meant to be learning experiences to move on from.
“My whole thing is when I deal with players, it's always to build them up, it's never to tear them down. I tell them all the time there's two types of knowledge in life, it's borrowed and it's bought. Sometimes you buy it, sometimes you borrow it, and Richie bought it,” McGaughey said. “So, he's just got to keep his head up. This game is about adversity and it's not about what happens to you, it's about how you react to what happens to you. It will be a test for him, and we'll see what happens. We've got a lot of guys competing for the spot and we'll see what happens.”
And, when James is healthy, he may get another shot at being a returner again.
“We're going to let the week play out and see what happens.
We've got a bunch of guys back there catching them,” McGaughey said. Obviously, you can't put the ball on the ground. We all know that. That's a no brainer. You know you can't turn the ball over and put it on the ground. So, we'll see what happens once we get towards the back end of the week.”
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