Jon Feliciano is finished yelling in pain, but he still has plenty of loud things to say.
Can this version of the Giants offensive line — with Feliciano at center — finally be the one that ends a decade of season-wrecking underperformance?
“The thing is, I think we can be really good,” he said.
Any cause for concern that right tackle Evan Neal is getting beat too frequently?
“I’ve never seen a rookie be a vet so early on,” Feliciano said.
Is playing offensive line under constant scrutiny with the Giants — a result of previous failures and ownership’s belief that the turnaround will start up front — different from other teams, for which big guys fly under the radar? Yes, but in the opposite of the way you think.
“The last place I was, we were kind of the thorn in the heel,” said Feliciano, who followed Giants head coach Brian Daboll and offensive line coach Bobby Johnson over from the high-powered Buffalo Bills, where he criticized head coach Sean McDermott. “Here it’s different. Dabes has really been honest and giving us love, so it’s been great.”
The only interruption to the starting offensive line through two weeks of training camp was Feliciano’s four-practice (five-day) absence that began with heat-induced dehydration on July 28. He hopped in the cold tub and requested an IV, but the staff “missed me a few times” with the needle in the arm.
“I started profusely sweating,” Feliciano said. “And then I just started full body cramping. I didn’t really have much liquid in my body to sweat like that. And I kind of just went downhill very quickly.”
Feliciano said he had a similar experience as a freshman at Miami and understood what was happening. The Giants didn’t send him to the hospital because his only symptom was “yelling from cramping.”
“They looked out for me, and they brought me back in slowly,” said Feliciano, who was on a 20-snap maximum Friday during the intra-squad scrimmage. “I appreciate them, but I was fighting tooth and nail to get back out there. It wasn’t scary. It’s just not a fun time.”
It looked as if the line had more fun during practice Sunday, setting a physical tone in red-zone, inside-run drills that suggested an ability to get tough yards missing from past offenses. Left tackle Andrew Thomas is the only returning starter on a unit that isn’t going to get pushed for job security by the backups.
“It’s all about getting our reps together and getting our verbiage the same,” Feliciano said. “Early on, it’s just like guys are saying things from different systems — or in the heat of the moment we have to get our communication down the best we can. It’s kind of my job to make sure that all Evan and Andrew have to worry about is blocking the guy in front of them and not thinking about things.”
Neal, Feliciano said, has made an impression by being “well beyond his years in taking care of his body” and always hitting the weight room after the final meetings of the evening. Alarms are not sounding just because Neal has lost his share of 1-on-1 pass-rush drills to inferior players, especially when the tape shows him finishing blocks in 11-on-11.
“He’s also working through some new techniques that he’s getting better with,” Feliciano said. “Honestly, 1-on-1 right now this early in camp, we don’t want him to get beat [but] we want him to try things so that he can perfect them for the regular season.”
The Giants already have lost both projected second-team tackles to injuries — Korey Cunningham was released and Matt Gono’s career reportedly is in jeopardy — and have turned to journeymen additions Will Holden and Eric Smith (signed after practice Sunday). Rookie second-team guard Marcus McKethan suffered a season-ending torn ACL, leaving rookie Joshua Ezeudu with a tall task as a “sixth-man” backup at guard and tackle.
“We’ve put him in a lot of different spots early on in camp, and that’s not always easy for a rookie,” head coach Brian Daboll said. “You’d like him to be able to let him sit at one spot as a young player, but where we are … we’ll need him at each spot.”
Unless Feliciano is right about the high ceiling for the five starters. That would be a welcome change for the Giants.