Watching 38-year-old placekicker Graham Gano easily made field goals of 53, 51 and 50 yards in a preseason game against the Buffalo Bills was comforting for New York Giants special teams coach Michael Ghobrial.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s definitely a breath of fresh air when you see a guy perform at what you know he can do and that was something that we saw, honestly, in training camp and in the offseason. It was like, \u2018Okay, Graham is kicking well. He looks like he\u2019s got his leg\u2026\u2019 and all that,\u201d Ghobrial said on Monday. \u201cBut ultimately, we\u2019re a production-based business so when you do it in the game, you\u2019re like, \u2018Okay, yeah, that\u2019s Graham Gano.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Gano has had back-to-back injury-plagued seasons, but the Giants are still counting on him to be their kicker. The game against Buffalo offered hope that the Giants\u2019 confidence won\u2019t be misplaced.<\/p>\n
Here are some other takeaways from Ghobrial\u2019s media availability.<\/p>\n
Ihmir Smith-Marsette\u2019s DNP<\/p>\n
Some eyebrows were raised when kick returner\/wide receiver Ihmir Smith-Marsette did not play Saturday against the New York Jets. Head coach Brian Daboll has said there is almost always a medical reason for a player not taking part in a preseason game. Smith-Marsette, though, appeared to be a healthy scratch.<\/p>\n
Ghobrial imdicated that it was simply a matter of the Giants not needing to see anything from Smith-Marsette, who averaged 7.9 yards per punt return and 34.6 yards per kickoff return for the Giants last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re confident in Ihmir\u2019s ability,\u201d Ghobrial said. \u201cHe\u2019s had a lot of take out there, and really we just wanted to give other guys opportunity. We\u2019ve been blessed with this roster of having a good amount of returners on this roster. A lot of guys in this league that have done it from the dual-returner ability so we\u2019re just going to continue to roll them through and see what some of these guys can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dante Miller needs to be an asset on special teams to stick with the team as a backup running back. Miller\u2019s 4.27 speed makes him a kickoff return option. That speed and a willingness to be physical are making him an option on coverage teams, as well.<\/p>\n
Miller downed a punt at the 5-yard line against the Jets while working as a punt gunner.<\/p>\n
\u201cTurbo lives up to his nickname, real speed,\u201d Ghobrial said. \u201cThe one thing that you see in practice as well is he has really good practice demeanor so you see the very intentional and deliberate practice habits show up in the game. You see his ability to run by a vice and he\u2019s a very willing and physical tackler when those opportunities present itself so excited to see Turbo whenever he gets those opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n
To encourage more kickoff returns, the NFL moved touchbacks from the 30 to the 35-yard line this season. Ghobrial indicated that makes kicking teams want to be sure they force a return.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest rule difference from last year has been where the touchback is now spotted and because there\u2019s been a lot more footballs in play, you haven\u2019t necessarily felt what a 35-yard line drive start would feel like throughout the entirety of the game,\u201d Ghobrial said. \u201cThe one thing I will say though is we\u2019ve hit a touchback, whether it be a yard deep, two yards deep, there has been a touchback where it was spotted on the 35 and you just feel what that does to the defense, and especially with how skilled the kickers are these days, they get a first down and then let\u2019s say they go three-and-out after that, a kicker may be in field goal range now.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re definitely feeling the consequences of consistently kicking touchbacks which may translate more to more kicks in play this year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watching 38-year-old placekicker Graham Gano easily made field goals of 53, 51 and 50 yards in a preseason…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2048],"tags":[215,214,53,2086,7,1207,29339,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-300585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-bills","8":"tag-bills","9":"tag-buffalo","10":"tag-buffalo-bills","11":"tag-buffalobills","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-new-york-giants-news","14":"tag-new-york-giants-preseason","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115055485708769881","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}