With the kickoff of the 2012 season fewer than 100 days away now, coach Tom Coughlin appeared in a special Memorial Day episode of "Total Access" that ran on NFL Network Monday night.
Last week, the coach received the Outstanding Civilian Service Award, the third highest honor the United States Department of the Army can bestow upon a private citizen. He spoke about Wednesday's ceremony held at Fort Myer in Virginia.
"It's an incredible honor," he said. "You're very humbled when you receive an honor of this nature because you're talking about just being an American citizen and supporting our troops – that's really what I believe in."
Coughlin then spoke some football and was asked about the status of wide receiver Hakeem Nicks.
Nicks fractured the fifth metatarsal of his right foot in the team's second OTA workout this past Thursday when he was running a route during individual drills at the Timex Performance Center.
The recovery time was announced as 12 weeks, leaving the question of whether the team will have a healthy Nicks for the Sept. 5 opener against the Cowboys.
"Well, it's probably going to be close," Coughlin said. "Hopefully we will. He feels very confident about it. The doctors have expressed it being something that they think will heal very, very well. Obviously, we've got to get on about the business of healing here right away, but if it takes the full three months, you're going to be sitting right up next to that opening game. And we certainly hope that Hakeem is correct in saying that he heals fast."
Coughlin also shed more light on how the injury occurred, saying that Nicks was running a hook route at the time.
"Then all of a sudden he started limping," Coughlin continued. "I thought he rolled his ankle over. Well, it wasn't his ankle. But let's take the positive side of it. The positive side of it is that the doctors are very confident that this will be a complete healing and perhaps the bone will even be stronger than it ever was."
Coughlin was also asked what he plans on saying to President Obama when his Super Bowl champion Giants visit the White House on June 8.
"I'll thank him for granting us the opportunity to come and visit with him," Coughlin said. "And then we'll probably talk about the economy and perhaps we'll talk about some basketball or whatever the President would like to speak about."
And during the interview on the national holiday, Coughlin doesn't let anyone forget where Memorial Day began – in his hometown of Waterloo, N.Y.
"That's another reason why we have such strong feelings of patriotism," Coughlin said. "Because I can remember back when I was a kid, the little league parade always was on Memorial Day and it finished up around the cemetery and we honored those fallen soldiers who had defended our country."
